


the unspeakable fear of things

by skuls



Series: Emily AU [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, angst fluff, emily au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-07-28 06:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 41,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7627966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily Sim is cured by mysterious circumstances, deemed a miracle by the doctors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is slightly related to my other emily story, the long and winding road, so there are probably some similarities in scenes here. (although if i continue in this au past this story, i'll probably take it in a different direction.)
> 
> warning for the events of the episodes kitsunegari, schizogeny, chinga, and kill switch, as well as emily's grief over the death of her parents and discussion of those events. also i characterized marshall sim as being a decent guy who was framed by the syndicate, but that's just my interpretation. 
> 
> thanks to @moonprincess92nz for helping me out with emily’s characterization

**the unspeakable fear of things**

**_1998_ **

Emily Sim is cured by mysterious circumstances, deemed a miracle by the doctors. Mulder knows better. He checks the hospital cameras but the one outside of Emily's room goes fuzzy for a few minutes around midnight.  

///

Emily sits on the couch, looking small against the bulk of the cushions. She folds her hands in her lap, and looks to Scully for approval. She’s been quiet ever since they’ve met, quiet on the flight, quiet on the ride home except for a couple of softly-worded questions about memorials.

Scully turns a chair to face the couch, and sits in it. She leans forward, as if to touch her daughter, and stops at the last minute. She doesn’t want to scare her. Emily has already been shy and quiet, fading into the background, gazing at everything with wide eyes.

“You know,” Scully says in what she prays is a gentle and welcoming voice. “You can call me whatever you want.” She’s not sure exactly where this came from, but she doesn’t want her to feel like she is obligated to call her “Mommy”. Not when her mother died a matter of weeks ago.

(She wants Emily to call her “Mommy” more than anything in the world.)

Emily nods, not quite looking at her, and Scully wishes, not for the first time, that she’d been able to be there for Emily from the beginning, even to know she existed, and to shield her from this life. She wants to know what cured her, but also wants to forget about it, regard it as a miracle and move on with their lives. She wishes she had never heard the words “alien abductions”.

///

They make progress slowly. She is still learning how to be a mom, and her daughter is still adjusting to the move. Emily moves shadow-like around the apartment, is very quiet in her toddler activities. She raids the cabinet for cookies, and memorizes the kids channels on the TV. She calls Scully "Dana", her voice echoing down the small hallway as her socked feet slip and slide on the floor. She doesn’t like to be alone, although she rarely indicates whether she wants Scully to do things with her or not, so Scully just tries to be in the general vicinity, reading or working on a medical article or just watching Emily.

Scully isn’t sure what the limits are. She doesn’t know what Emily thinks of her, if she’s uncertain about living here. And she doesn’t want to push her. Her daughter wakes up crying during the night sometimes, clutching at a stuffed bunny Maggie bought her at the airport, and she tries rubbing her back in an attempt at comfort, but she’s not sure if it works. Emily will blink up at her with red eyes, clutching the comforter with one hand. She wants to know where her parents are. Scully tries to explain, but the words fall apart in her mouth.

The closest thing they have to a real connection is the cross necklace, which Emily refuses to take off, even for a bath. It takes a good amount of negotiating for her to leave it on the bedside table. “You could choke, sweetie,” Scully says, unclasping it gently. “But it’ll be right here when you wake up, okay?” Emily nods like she understands, and curls under the blankets. She is too quiet sometimes. Scully thinks about kissing her head, but doesn’t.

“These things take time, Dana,” her mother had said. “But this is going to work. I can feel it. You love that little girl to pieces, and I can tell she likes you.” Scully hopes she’s right. This is her only chance to be a mother, her only chance to protect her daughter from the forces that created her.

Scully isn’t sure how to entertain her. Emily seems to be doing well with the toys clumped in the corner of the living room - she’s going to have to do something about that - and the TV, so Scully works at the table, keeping an eye on her. She looks up at one point to find Emily flipping through a medical journal, stretched out on the rug and studying the page with a childlike intensity. “You can read that?” Scully asks in forgetful astonishment.

Emily giggles quietly and shakes her head. “I can read some. Mommy said I was smart.” Scully blinks hard, and forces a smile. (The last thing Emily needs to think is that she can't talk about her adoptive mother. Which, Scully doesn't mind. She doesn't. It's just hard when she feels like she should've been there all along.) “But these words are too big,” Emily adds, twisting their cross in her small fingers.

“What would you think about getting some easier books?” Scully asks, remembering her own childhood trips to the library.

Emily smiles fully now, clambering to her feet with excitement. She holds Scully’s hand the whole time, except to kneel in front of the shelf in the picture book section and run her hands over the spines, and says, “Thank you, Dana,” quietly in the checkout line.

They spend a few hours reading Scotch-taped books which have been touched by a million strangers on the couch, taking turns reading lines. Emily has a hard time with a lot of the words - she prefers for Scully to read, curls into the couch and watches the page with her huge blue eyes.

///

It’s been a few days since she’s talked to Mulder when she gets the call. They’ve only talked on the phone since California, and Mulder seemed awkward, like he was unsure how to reply to the things she was saying. She’s missed him, wants him around, but doesn’t want to make things harder on all three of them. She's not sure how Emily would react to another stranger, and although Mulder’s been nothing but nice to her, he also seems awkward around her, like he doesn't know how to react. Scully’s had enough of those kind of feelings herself without throwing a nervous Mulder into the mix.

Scully’s on the couch when she gets the call, Emily’s head drooping against her upper arm, staring at the TV intently. She doesn’t want to move and jar Emily out of her half-asleep state, so she grabs the phone from the coffee table, and answers, “Hello?” instead of her usual brisk “Scully”.

“Agent Scully,” Skinner says on the other end. “I’m sorry to bother you at home.”

“Sir,” she says. Her first thought is that it's about Mulder. “How can I help you?”

“Have you spoken to Agent Mulder recently?”

“No.” Her breath catches in her throat. She forces her voice to calm, smoothing out the bumps. _It's going to be okay,_ she tells herself. “Why do you ask?”

There’s an uncomfortable pause. Skinner clears his throat. “Modell escaped from prison.”

The phone slips against her palm. “Pusher?” Scully snaps incredulously, tightening her grip on the phone. Emily yanks away and stares up at her with confusion. “Why wasn’t I made aware of this?”

“Mulder asked me not to tell you. He didn’t want you coming in to work the case.”

Her first thought is _I’m going to kill him_ . Her second thought is _someone might beat me to it_. Oh, God. “So, what, now Mulder’s missing?” Scully says sharply. Emily is staring at her with a little bit of fear, probably from her loud tone. She reaches out and smooths her daughter’s hair in an attempt to reassure her that this is not about her. Her hands are shaking.

“Well…” Skinner trails off. “After Modell’s escape, the prosecutor in his case was killed in an… unusual way. But Mulder became convinced that his wife, Linda Bowman, was behind the murders. Modell’s in the hospital. I shot him under the impression he had a gun. We can’t locate Agent Mulder.”

The phone is still slippery in her sweaty palms. Scully runs her free hand over Emily’s red-blonde head again, trying to gain some reassurance. “I’m coming in.”

“Agent Scully, are you sure that…”

“I’m coming in,” she hisses.

“He's not necessarily in danger, you know,” Skinner tries. He'd seemed to support her decision to go on family leave to get Emily settled. “He could've just run off chasing false leads…”

“It’ll be a little while, I need to get my mom over here to watch Emily,” she says firmly, ignoring him. Call me immediately if you hear anything about Mulder.”

There’s another uncomfortable pause, and then Skinner agrees, somewhat reluctantly. It takes a good amount of willpower not to slam the phone down on the coffee table. The TV is still going, but Emily’s ignoring it. “What’s wrong, Dana?” she asks, worried.

Scully leans down so that she can look Emily in the eye. “Sweetie, you remember how I introduced you to my friend in California?” she asks. “Mulder? He made the funny face?”

Emily nods.

“Well, we work together,” she says. “We’re very close friends, and right now, he needs me.” Her voice cracks a little, the words coming out wobbly. “I really hate to leave you, but it would just be for a little while. Would you be okay staying with my mother? You remember her, right?”

Emily nods seriously. Scully smiles, and kisses her on the forehead. “Thank you.”

She curls her hand around Scully’s larger one and tugs briefly. “Promise you’ll be back?”

“I promise,” Scully says, reminding herself that it’s not necessarily a lie, she’s made it through things like this a million times before, she’ll make it back to her daughter.

Emily smiles a little back, white teeth just visible in the gap between her lips.

Her mother argues, thinks she shouldn’t leave Emily so soon, but when Scully throws out, “Mulder’s in danger”, she agrees almost immediately. Scully orders a pizza for Emily, digs her gun out of the locked drawer in the kitchen. Emily watches her instead of the TV. The phone rings, and she practically sprints to answer it. “Hello?” _pleasedon’tbedeadyouidiotpleasebeokay._

“Modell’s dead,” Skinner says, and the similarities in the two names almost scare her for a minute before the pieces snap together. “Linda Bowman is missing. Nurses at the hospital say that Mulder was in his room and left after he saw something on the back of a piece of paper that says _Nurse_ on it.” He pauses. “Scully, it’s an address.”

“Give it to me,” she says, grabbing a pen and notepad on the counter.

Skinner sighs, but doesn't bother arguing. “214 Channel Avenue.”

Scully scribbles it down in an unusually messy scrawl. “I’m headed there,” she says.

“Agent Scully…”

“I’m going.” It takes everything she has not to smack the counter. “I’m still a federal agent. Sir.” She hangs up again, dropping the phone on the counter. Part of her hopes someone else gets there first; the other part doesn’t think they’ll understand what to do.

Her mother arrives shortly after. “Thanks for coming, Mom,” Scully says, shoving her gun in her holster.

“Dana…” Maggie makes a pleading motion with her hand.

Scully ignores her, pressing a kiss to Emily’s head. “I’ll be right back, okay?” she tells her, even though she doesn’t really know that she will be.

///

The funny thing is that he thought she’d be safe, he really thought she’d be safe after she left. The Modell thing scared him, which is why he insisted she not know, but once it’d become clear that Modell wasn’t behind this, he hadn’t worried. How would Bowman know what Scully meant to him? (How'd she find her, did she do anything to Emily?)

_Scully, what’re you doing here?_

_She made me come here._

_Scully…_

_She’s making me do this._

He shudders.

Scully had insisted he come home with her. She’s in the kitchen talking to her mother in a low voice. Mulder lies on her couch under a blanket she’d draped around his shoulder, said something about him being in shock. He can’t stop staring at her in relief. It’s the kind of unspeakable relief that comes from years of worrying and panicking and chasing each other down dark halls, calling each other's names. It comes from the unspeakable fear of things that never stop making your stomach clench and your heart pound, that makes your skin crawl and your palms sweat and you unconsciously reach out for someone who isn't there.

He’ll be reaching out for her for a long time. He’ll never forget the sound of that gunshot, what she looks like falling to the ground.

_Mulder!_

_No! No!_

He closes his eyes against the images pushing aggressively against his skull. He hadn’t been able to make it to her in time. There’d been blood. All he could think was that he was never going to see her again, talk to her again. This was it. She was gone - because of him, the way he’d always thought it would end.

He’d thought about that little girl who had just been orphaned again. _Again_.

Maggie leaves after a minute, kissing Scully’s cheek and not looking at Mulder as she leaves. He should be the one leaving. He wonders how much she told her mother.

He can still see the barrel of his gun leveled at Bowman, at her. Before, it was different because everything in him was going into not pulling that trigger. This time, he hadn’t seen her, but he’d been ready to shoot. Would’ve shot, if she hadn’t shot first. Would’ve…

_You killed her! She has a daughter, and you fucking killed her!_

Mulder shuts his eyes against the bright of the room.

///

The man from the hospital in California is on Dana’s couch. Emily watches him. He falls asleep almost instantly, but tosses and turns and whimpers in his sleep. Emily steps closer to the couch, and touches him tentatively. He doesn’t move, but chokes out a word in his sleep: “ _Scully_.” He sounds scared.

Dana crouches by the couch, brushes the side of his face with her hand. “I’m here, Mulder,” she whispers. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Emily looks between them, fingering the blanket from her bed. It kind of looks like her parents when her mommy got the flu. Last time, she’d gotten it too, and they’d lain in bed together watching old movies while her dad brought them soup.

Dana turns to her, offering a small smile. “Would you be, um, uncomfortable if Mulder sleeps on the couch tonight?”

Emily shakes her head. After the past few months, she's gotten very used to strangers.

“Okay.” Her hand moves up his face to his hair, fingers running through it. “Want me to tuck you in? It’s late.”

“Uh-huh.” Emily holds her arms up for Dana to pick her up. She looks surprised at first, but then her features stretch out into a smile, and she scoops her up.

“Night, Mulder,” she whispers, before carrying Emily back to her new bedroom and tucking the covers around her.

“You came back,” Emily whispers, curling the comforter in her hands.

Dana unclasps the cross and puts it on the bedside table. “I promised I would. I’m always gonna come back, okay?” She smooths Emily’s hair again, kissing her good night. “You call me if you need me, okay? I’m right down the hall.” She flicks on the nightlight, and closes the door, leaving a crack. Emily listens to the clicking of Dana’s shoes as she closes her eyes.

///

He wants to leave first thing the next morning, but Scully and Emily convince him to stay for breakfast. Emily’s just as quiet as he’s ever seen her as she spoons up brightly colored marshmallows, but she giggles a few times when Scully says something to her. Scully’s eyes travel between Emily and Mulder as if they are ticking time bombs.

He skulks a little in the doorway as she stacks bowls in the sink. “Emily, sweetie, why don’t you go pick out some clothes and I’ll be in to help you in a minute, okay?” she says. “Then you can watch some TV if you want.”

“Okay.” Emily looks over at him, and offers him a tentative smile before running down the hall to her bedroom, overlarge sleeves trailing behind her.

Mulder watches Scully carefully as she approaches him. Part of him can’t believe she’s actually alive. She touches his arm. “Mulder, do you want to talk about last night?” she asks gently.

He takes a sharp breath. “Scully, I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

Scully yanks her hand back as if it’s burned. “That’s ridiculous.”

“You could’ve died last night!” he hisses, trying to keep his voice down.

“And how is that different from any of the other times I’ve almost died?”

He winces. “This was supposed to be over for you. You have a daughter now. My god, Scully, what were you even doing there?”

“Skinner called here wanting to find you.” Scully has her arms crossed, and is giving him a cool look. “I was worried.”

“You shouldn’t have come,” Mulder snaps. “You should’ve stayed the hell away.”

“If I hadn’t, _you’d_ be dead.”

 _That doesn’t matter_ , he wants to say, but doesn’t. Instead, he says, “Please, Scully. It’s not a good idea for us to be… attached. I have a lot of enemies, you know that.”

“And I don’t? Mulder, I left the field for Emily, but I fully intend to return someday if I think the adjustment will work. And I do intend to avoid dangerous situations, but I’m not going to stop seeing you just because of last night.” She’s glaring at him, eyes icy. Her daughter’s eyes are the same cool blue. Scully explained how she made the connection because of Emily’s eerie resemblance to a childhood Melissa, but he personally thinks she’s going to grow up to look like her mother.

The images are still there: Scully on the ground, bleeding out, _dead dead dead_. He wants to hug her and never let go, he wants to run away from her. “Scully…” he says, almost pleading.

Scully steps away from him. “I’ve got to go help Emily get ready, Mulder,” she says in a tight voice. He can’t read her tone. She ducks her head, blinking hard, and walks down the hall. Mulder collapses on the couch with a sigh. He really doesn’t want to leave her. But he also doesn’t want to lose her.

Emily enters the living room a few minutes later. “Hi,” she says, dropping on the rug.

“Hi,” Mulder says.

“Dana’s in the shower,” she adds. “She said I could watch TV.”

Mulder finds the remote wedged between two cushions - so that was what was poking into his side all night. “Here you go,” he says, passing her the remote. Emily flips it on, and punches buttons in instantly. A familiar cast of puppets pops up on the screen. “You like _Sesame Street_?” he asks with a smile. Samantha had loved the show when it'd first come out. He'd always hated it.

“Uh-huh.” Emily pulls her knees up to her chest. “I used to watch it with Daddy.”

Oh. Mulder watches her carefully for signs of tears. She presses her forehead against her knees. “I always liked Bert and Ernie, but he said he liked Oscar the Grouch,” she explains.

“I've always identified with Big Bird,” Mulder says, motioning down at his legs.

Emily giggles and leans back against the couch. Mulder settles in, turning his attention to the TV. They watch _Sesame Street_ in a companionable silence. Scully enters the room, smiling brightly at them when she finds them.

After a few shows, Emily seems to grow bored, and crawls over the carpet to the cabinet, pulling out a box of Chutes and Ladders. “Can we play?” she asks, excitement leaking into her voice.

“Sure,” Scully says. She sounds happier than he’s heard her sound in a long time. “What do you think, Mulder?”

On an impulse, he grabs her hand, caressing the freckled back with one thumb, holding it as long as he dares, which equates to just a few seconds. “Sure, Scully,” he says, pulling away.

They play three rounds, Emily winning two of them. Scully makes burned-around-the-edges grilled cheese for lunch. Emily grins at her around a mouthful of bread and cheese and tells her that it’s good anyway.

It’s almost surreal, Mulder thinks, sitting here with his partner that he’s secretly in love with and her daughter, eating grilled cheese and playing a board game. But not in a bad way.  

“I have a meeting with Skinner,” he tells Scully apologetically around two.

She nods understandingly. “Will you let me know if he needs to talk to me?”

“Sure.”

“Are you gonna come back after?” Emily asks shyly, kicking the table leg.

“No, I should go home,” he says. He doesn’t want to push it.

“Okay. Thanks for coming, Mulder.” She smiles. “I had fun.”

He smiles back. This kid knows how to pull at one’s heartstrings. “I had fun, too.”

“You’ve got great manners,” Scully says quietly with a smile. He suddenly realizes that this is the most he's seen her smile in one sitting.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her in a low voice at the door. “About everything. I don’t want…”

“It’s okay.” She steps closer, leans into him. He wraps his arms around her gratefully. She's alive, here, he can feel her breaths against his shoulder.

Scully steps back and smooths his hair absently. “Talk to you later?”

He nods, smiles a little. As much as he wants her safe, far away from this, he doesn't think he could go without talking to her.

///

Emily answers her door, leaning against it heavily. “Hi, Mulder.”

“Hi, Emily. Is your mo- I mean Sc- Dana around?” He tries to hide his mistake behind a cough, but she seems somewhat unaffected.

“In the shower.”

Mulder crouches so he can look her in the eye. “Are you supposed to answer the door?” he asks seriously.

“It was just you. Dana likes you.” Emily shrugs, padding over to the couch.

It could’ve been an assassin or an alien bounty hunter, but that doesn’t seem like an appropriate conversation to be having with a three-year-old, and he doesn’t think he’s the person who needs to be having it. Emily plops down on the couch cushion, and looks over at the door. Mulder takes this as a sign to enter. “So, you’re Dana’s friend?” Emily asks.

“Uh, yes,” he says. “We work together.”

Emily’s hand is clamped around Scully’s cross, the one he wore when she was gone. He wonders if she knows that he wore it, that he didn’t just put it aside in a box until she came back. “She says you’re nice.” Emily swings her feet, toes of her socks flopping. “Want to color something?”

“Um, sure.” Mulder scans the living room. “Where’s the…”

“In the kitchen, low cabinet.”

“Oh, thanks.” He rummages through a few cabinets before finding a pad of paper and box of crayons that looks a lot nicer than the one in the children’s home.  He grabs a book from the stack by the coffee table, and rips a clean sheet free, handing them both to Emily. “Here you go.”

She grabs a handful of crayons from the paper, and starts to color. Mulder grabs a crayon at random, and watches the advancement of the hues across the page. “Another potato?”

“No,” Emily says patiently, sounding exactly like Scully at the end of a long work day. Well. With a considerably higher voice, that is. “A sunset.”

Mulder tips to his head to the side. “Oh, I should’ve seen that!” he says. “It’s pretty! I bet you’re gonna be an artist someday.”

Emily giggles quietly. “I don’t want to be an artist, though.”

“Oh, yeah? What do you want to be?”

“I don’t know yet.” Emily drops a few crayons on the couch. Good thing Scully didn’t spring for white. “Hi, Dana,” she says.

Mulder turns to see her in the doorway. “Hey, Scully,” he says. “Sorry, Emily let me in.”

“Emily, sweetie, you shouldn’t do that. Next time someone’s at the door you come get me, okay? You’re too short to see out the peephole.”

“I’ll be taller someday.” Emily kicks out her right foot, sock slipping down her ankle.

“Okay, well, we’ll talk about it then. For now, come get me instead. Okay?”

She nods, still absorbed in her sunset.

Scully offers Mulder an apologetic smile. “Hi. Do you want to talk in the kitchen?”

They sit at the kitchen table. “How’s she doing?” Mulder asks, motioning to Emily.

“She’s been getting better during the day, more talkative and active. I think she’s getting used to me.” Scully pulls at a chunk of dried nail polish. “She still has nightmares, though. She still misses her parents and her life back in California.”

“She seems to be doing okay to me,” he observes. “I haven’t spent a lot of time with her, but it looks like she’s getting there.”

“It’ll take time,” Scully agrees. They sit in an awkward silence for a minute before she speaks again. “Was there something in particular you needed to talk to me about, Mulder?”

“Uh, yeah. I got the hospital to give me a copy of the surveillance footage from the time Emily spent there.” He pulls a tape out of his jacket, and hands it to her. “I had the Gunmen scrub every bit of this footage, but they can’t get anything from the minutes where the screen gets funny. I had San Diego PD interview staff, and somehow, nobody was near her room during the unaccounted for time. Other than those few minutes, there’s nothing suspicious.”

Scully buries her face in her hands. “I should’ve been there,” she says, her voice muffled by her palms. “I mean, I’m more grateful than you can imagine, but I want to know what was done to her. If there are any side effects, if anyone’s going to come for her…”

Mulder reaches out and squeezes her shoulder. “We’ll figure this out, Scully,” he says. “The tape is yours, and you can go through it as many times as you need to.”

She nods, but doesn’t move her hands away.

Emily crosses the living room, coming beside Scully and putting a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong? Are you sad?”

Scully lifts her head to look at Emily, smiling a little. “No, sweetie, I’m okay. Thank you for checking on me, that’s very nice of you.”

Emily climbs up into her lap, and Scully curls her arms around the little girl. Mulder watches. He feels, not for the first time, like he shouldn’t be disturbing this little family.

///

Dana teaches her more games. Go Fish, Candyland. She climbs in her bed when Emily asks for a bedtime story, reading the books picked out. She hasn't touched Emily a lot since the night she brought Mulder home, except to carry her to bed on occasion. Emily reaches for Dana’s hand blindly whenever they leave the apartment.

Dana’s mother - her grandmother, which is weird, because Emily never had a grandmother before, her dad grew up in something called foster care and her mom didn't talk to her parents - visits a lot. She seems weird sometimes, but Emily can usually coax her into playing some sort of game. She's nice. She shows Emily a picture of her new baby cousin in California ( _born just after Dana found you, Emily, isn’t he precious_ ). Emily gets a glimpse of her own face among other faces before the wallet snaps shut.

Emily asks when Mulder’s coming back. Dana grins. “I'm not sure. He's on a case in Michigan right now, maybe I can call him when he gets back.”

“A case?” Emily asks, confused. “Like your case?” She points at the black square in the corner of the apartment.

“Wha- oh, no, sweetie. You know what a police officer is, right?” Emily nods; police had come to the house at Christmas. “Well, Mulder’s like a… big deal police officer, called an FBI agent. I'm an FBI agent too, actually, remember we work together. And a case is what we call it when we go help people.”

 _Like a superhero,_ Emily thinks in awe. “So Mulder’s helping people right now?”

“Mm hmm.”

“What's he helping with?”

“Well… we're the people they give weird cases to.” Dana’s forehead wrinkles, and she taps her fingers on the table. “Like in _Scooby-Doo_ ,” she offers finally.

Emily's eyes widen, and she kicks the table a little in fascination. “Really? Do you catch monsters? Do you work with a dog?”

“Well, we…” Dana smiles slowly. “Actually, I did bring my dog along one time when I didn't have time to find a dog sitter.”

Emily giggles. “What about the monsters? Are they just old guys in masks?”

Dana’s expression changes a little. “I wish,” she says quietly, nudging the puzzle piece into place. “The monsters we catch are real.”

“Cool,” Emily says immediately. Something about the way Dana is sitting tells her it’s not.

Mulder visits a couple days later. “Dana says you guys catch monsters,” Emily informs him.

He raises an eyebrow and turns to look at Dana, who's searching for the Nutter Butters in the pantry. “She did?” Dana shakes her head and doesn't turn to face them, but from where Emily's sitting, she can see her smile.

“Yeah,” Emily says. “What kind of monster were you hunting this time?”

“It wasn't exactly like that,” Mulder says with a laugh. “But,” he adds confidentially, lowering his voice to a whisper. “In Michigan, I did see _living trees_.”

Dana snorts, dropping the red cookie box. Emily's eyes widen with fascination. “Really?”

“Yep.”

“Were they hurting people? Did you stop them?”

“Something like that,” Mulder says, and stops, like he doesn’t want to say more. Emily wriggles a little in anticipation.

“Don’t give her nightmares,” Dana says, sitting beside her and kissing the top of her head gingerly. Emily smiles up at her.

“You scared?” Mulder whispers to her. She shakes her head, excited. The story is like something out of a movie she's not allowed to watch.

She doesn't have nightmares. Not about living trees, that is. If she dreams about anything, it's her parents, and the bathroom at the end of the hall. _No, don't go down there, sweetie,_ the officers had said, holding out their arms, before her father had scooped her up and carried her downstairs, but she'd seen something like red paint on the bathroom tiles. She remembers seeing Dana in corners of her old house as her father paced the living room. After he'd put her down, she’d crawled behind the Christmas tree, out of sight. She'd opened some of her presents and felt bad about it.

When she wakes up and her mother is not there, she ends up walking down the hall to the other bedroom, whispering, “Dana?” as she enters. It's a lot darker in there; Dana  doesn't have a night light.

She wakes up by blinking slowly. “Emily? Sweetie, what is it?”

“I had a nightmare,” Emily whispers, scaling the side of the bed.

Dana tucks the covers around her, hand going to her forehead. “It's okay,” she says. “You're okay. It was just a dream.”

She burrows under the covers, into the warm space left where Dana rolled to the side. Dana starts rubbing her back. “Want to tell me what it was about?”

“Not Mulder’s stories, not like you said,” Emily says. “It was about Mommy.” Tears start up, and she scrubs at her eyes with her fist.

“Oh, sweetie,” Dana murmurs.

“She wasn't there.” She crawls closer to Dana, burying her face against her pajama top.

“Emily,” she mutters, kissing the top of her head. “I'm so sorry. Do you wanna stay here for a little while?”

She nods.

“Okay.” Dana hugs her and smooths her hair for a minute. Emily sniffs and leans back against a pillow. “Just for a bit, okay?”

She sleeps there until light starts to filter in from beneath the blinds, easier than she’s slept in months.

///

Emily’s hair turns a darker red when it’s wet, dripping down her back. She wears large pink pajamas, with sleeves that flop over her hands. Scully tucks her into bed and starts to reach for a library book - she’s going to have to buy some books before long - but Emily touches her hand. “My mom didn’t used to read to me,” she says.

Scully moves her hand away from the books. “Oh, really?”

She shakes her head. “That was Daddy. Mommy would sing to me.”

Her daughter clearly needs this, clearly needs to be able to talk about her past life. And she is going to listen, even if it hurts that she missed all of those years. Scully slides under the covers in their normal reading position, with her arm around Emily, and asks, “What would she sing?”

“Old songs. I don’t remember. But she sang a lot. Like when she’d wash the dishes.” Emily scoots over closer. “And when she was driving to the beach.”

Scully rubs her daughter’s arm. “Did you go to the beach a lot?”

“Uh huh, on the weekends. The water was really pretty. I was always scared of sharks.” Emily’s voice is weighed down with sleepiness. “One time, I saw a shark, when I was on the sand, and Mommy held my hand and told me that the shark wasn’t gonna bother me if I didn’t bother it, but to stay away from the water so I wouldn’t be bothering it…”

She starts crying eventually, but she doesn’t stop talking for almost an hour, eventually lulling herself to sleep. Scully just holds her, staying in her bed for another hour afterwards, just listening to Emily breathe.

///

Scully balances the phone between her shoulder and ear as she scans Mulder’s bookshelf. “Mulder, only you would go on vacation, end up running into some crazy supernatural occurrence, and send your partner to your apartment to find your book on witchcraft.”

“What can I say, Scully? This is exactly the type of thing to happen to me.”

She snorts. “You’ve got that right.”

“Wait, what’s that pounding sound on the other end?”

She hides a smile behind one hand. “Emily found your basketball.” Emily hadn’t been thrilled at the thought of a trip to Mulder’s apartment, but the basketball had seemed to cheer her up. She’s been getting more interested in activity every day, seems to be getting happier slowly but surely.

“Sounds like she’s got some talent,” Mulder says with approval.

“Mmhmm.” Scully scans the volumes again. “Anyway, I don’t see how your book will help. What you described doesn’t sound like witchcraft.”

“Oh, really?” he says, teasing. “Would you even know what to look for?”

“Like evidence of conjury or the black arts?” she shoots back. “Or shamanism, divination, Wicca, or any kind of pagan or neo-pagan practice? Charms, cards, familiars, blood-stones, or hex signs, or any kind of the ritual tableau associated with the occult; Santeria, Voudom, Macumba or any high or low magic…”

“Scully.”

She halts her monologue as her fingers brush a _Guide to Witchcraft_ book. “Yes?” She yanks it free.

“Marry me.”

The book hits the floor, missing her toe by an inch. “Dana, can I get something to drink?” Emily calls from somewhere in the kitchen area.

“Yeah, sweetie, just pick out something from the fridge and I’ll get you a glass in a minute,” Scully calls, hoping Mulder has something decent in there.

“Scully? Was that the basketball again?” Mulder asks on the other end.

“No, actually that was your book,” she says, trying to push the marriage comment out of her mind. She hopes her face isn’t red. “What is it you need me to look up?”

Mulder clears his throat. “You know, Scully, I think you might be right. I’ve been considering other possibilities, and I don’t think this is witchcraft after all.”

“So you made me come all the way over here for nothing?” Scully toes the book with some disdain.

“Sorry?” he volunteers.

She sighs. “It’s fine. Just… don’t do anything stupid up there, okay? Remember, you’re on vacation.”

“Scully, have you ever known me to do anything stupid?” Mulder says cheerfully. “Listen, I should go. I’ll call you, okay?”

“Okay, please do,” she says, just before the dial tone sounds in her ear. Over the monotonous beep, she can still hear Mulder’s joking proposal echoing in her ear.

“Dana?” Emily walks up with a container of orange juice, nose wrinkled. “This smells funny.”

Scully takes the jug, and checks the expiration date. “Ugh,” she mutters, shoving it aside.

///

Mulder shows up on their doorstep a few days later. “Brought you something,” he says, waving a plastic Maine Welcome Center bag at Scully.

“What on Earth…” she mutters, taking the bag from his grasp and digging through it.

Emily comes into the room then, holding her coloring books and crayons. “Hi, Mulder.”

“Hey, Em,” he says. “Oh, check it out, I brought you something from Maine.” He hands her a stuffed lobster.

Emily takes it with interest. “Cool!” She grins up at them. “Thank you. It’s a lobster, right?”

“You're welcome, and yes it is. Good eye,” Mulder says warmly.

Scully holds up a white Maine t-shirt. “Classy.”

“Hey, I thought you'd like it.”

Emily surveys it. “It's pretty, Dana!”

“Yeah, Scully,” Mulder chimes in.

She rolls her eyes. “You two are ridiculous.” She nudges Emily to show that she's teasing.

“Yeah, but we both think you're pretty,” Emily says.

Mulder turns a little red at this, and reaches down to tousle Emily's hair. She swats his hand away, giggling louder.

“So, what did your witchcraft end up being, Mulder?” Scully drops the t-shirt back into the bag. Emily's eyes widen, and she bounces a little.

“I dunno, Scully, would an evil doll story scare her?”

“No, no! Tell me!” Emily says, tugging on Mulder’s hand in the direction of the couch.

Scully hides her smile behind the wadded up bag and Maine t-shirt. “I already don't believe you, Mulder.”

///

“Mulder,” Scully says sternly. “Why wouldn't someone tell me?”

Mulder sighs, and shifts the phone in his grip. “The Gunmen didn't even know, Scully. It's fine. Invisigoth got me out of the trailer before it exploded.”

“I read the file, Mulder. Her name was Esther. And besides that, she didn't take you far enough. The doctor who examined you said there were first degree burns…”

“You been checking up on me, Scully?”

“I've been _worried_ ,” Scully says tensely. “I think you should come over and let me check the burns.”

“Scully, not that I'd ever protest seeing you, but they've already been checked at the hospital.” Mulder flicks a pencil up at the ceiling. “I think you're overreacting.”

“Oh, like you've never over-” She stops, makes a muffled sound.

“Scully?” Mulder says. “Everything okay?”

Her voice comes back more clearly. “Yeah, I'm fine. Someone wants to talk to you.”

A crackling sound, then Emily’s voice. “Hi, Mulder.”

“Hey, Em,” he says with a smile. “What’s up?”

“Did you get hurt again? Dana sounded mad.”

He smiles wider at this. “No, not really hurt. I mean, a computer kind of… attacked me… but I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

He laughs. “Yeah, I’m sure. Make sure Dana knows that, okay?”

“Okay.” More crackling. “Are you gonna come over again?”

“Did Dana tell you to say that?”

“No, I told myself. But Dana wants you to come over, too.”

Mulder laughs again. A pencil falls from the ceiling, hitting him square in the knee. “Tell her I'll be over in a minute, okay?”

///

“Scully.” Something pokes her in the cheek. “Hey. Scully. You missed the end of the movie.”

“Mmph,” she mutters, shifting Emily’s sleeping form on her lap as she wakes up. She lifts her head from what must be Mulder’s shoulder. “Sorry. What time is it?”

“9:00,” Mulder says, half teasing. “You got an early bedtime now, Scully, or did I miss something?”

“You try arguing with a little girl about why she should go to bed at 8:30 when you’re still awake,” Scully says groggily.

“How’s the… adjustment going?”

She smooths her daughter’s hair absently. “I think it’s going well, all things considered. She still misses her parents, understandably, and has nightmares sometimes. But…” Her fingers run down the side of Emily’s cheek. She makes a little snuffling sound, but doesn’t wake up. “We’re adjusting.”

“I’m glad that this is working for you,” Mulder says, squeezing her shoulder. “I know what it means to you.”

Scully turns to smile at him. “I appreciate how supportive you’ve been through all of this. I know it must’ve been hard running the X Files by yourself again.”

“Well, you certainly think a lot of yourself,” he teases.

She juggles Emily a little in her arms as she stands to carry her back to her room. “Well, I’ll be back at work next week, so you’ll be relieved of her burden,” she says, walking towards the bedroom.

“Scully?”

She turns to face him at his astonished words. “Mulder, what is it?”

He dips his head a little. “It’s just… I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“I’ve just been on family leave,” Scully says. “But my twelve weeks are up. I thought you knew that.”

“Are you sure that it’s a good idea to come back, what with Emily to think about?”

“You sound like my mother,” she says with what she hopes is a reassuring smile. “Mulder, plenty of FBI agents have kids… Caswell, up in the VCS. I should’ve discussed this with you earlier… I was going to ask that we take less out-of-town cases. The occasional is fine, later on, after Em’s adjusted, Mom would love some time alone with her. But for now… the day to day won’t be a problem, I talked to Emily about going to preschool, and she likes the idea. The one I enrolled her in is near the Hoover building so I can go and get her if there’s a problem.”

“Scully, I’m happy to do whatever we need to for Emily,” Mulder says warmly. “It’s just…” He motions widely. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Scully sits in a chair, shifting Emily to a more comfortable position. She turns her face against Scully’s t-shirt, but doesn’t wake up.

“Well, I assume our semi-regular trips to the hospital aren’t going to go over well in motherhood.”

“Mulder…”

“Scully, I’ve thought about this a lot.” His eyes are wide and pleading. “I don’t want anything else to happen to you, and I don’t want to take you away from that little girl. The X Files are too dangerous. They always have been, and they never should’ve assigned me to you.”

“Mulder, I’m coming back because there are still unanswered questions about Emily, about what cured her. God only knows what they did to her, and if they’ll ever come back. If we expose the conspiracy, then we can make sure that she’s safe, and we are as well. They’re not going to stop, Mulder, but at least I can be prepared for it.” She intakes a sharp breath, hands still rhythmically caressing Emily’s hair. “And I want to come back because of you,” she adds. “I’m worried about you being on the X Files alone.”

“Scully…”

“We’re not going to convince each other to walk away,” she says. “So we’ll watch each other’s backs, because that’s what partners do. I can promise you that I’ll be careful, for Emily, but I don’t want you to become the sacrificial lamb in this situation, Mulder. I couldn’t stand it if you did.”

Mulder blinks at her, eyes still wide and pleading. And then he comes over to the chair and wraps his arms around them both. “Scully,” he murmurs against her hair. “Is there any way I could talk you out of this?”

She smiles against his shoulder. “Let’s face it, Mulder, I was in this for the long haul around 1994.”

He laughs, clutching them briefly before letting go. His eyes fall to Emily, still limp and asleep in her arms. “Wow, this kid could sleep through a hurricane.”

Scully nods, smiling. “I should get her to bed. What do you think, you want to watch another movie after?” She nudges his shoulder. “I could probably even be persuaded into baseball. Is it baseball season yet?”

“Few weeks too early, Scully.” Mulder offers her a small smile back. “I should probably get going. Tell Emily she has impeccable taste in movies.”

She kisses his cheek as she stands, whispering, “I’ll tell her.”

Scully tucks Emily in, tucks the stuffed bunny in beside her, and turns on the night light before closing the door to a crack. Mulder’s already gone when she gets out into the living room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoilers for patient x, the red in the black, all souls, pine bluff variant, folie a deux, the end, and ftf, although all have been altered to fit this au. warning for the events in these episodes

“You’re going to be okay all day at preschool, right?” Scully kneels in front of Emily, smooths her sweater. “Playing with the other kids?”

“I miss my friends from California,” Emily says quietly, downcasting her eyes to the pavement.

 _Damn_ , Scully thinks, _I should’ve thought of that_. “I know, honey. I'm sorry.” She takes Emily's hand and squeezes it. “If you want, I could find their addresses and we could write them letters. And you can make some new friends today. What do you think?”

“Okay.” Emily pulls at a loose thread in the sweater.

“Don’t do that, sweetie, it’ll unravel,” she says, moving Emily's  hand away gently. “Remember, it’s only gonna be during the day. I’m going to come get you at five, and if you want, we can go get dinner. We’re gonna try this out, but if you don’t like it, we’ll figure something out. Okay?”

“Okay.” She leans forward and kisses Scully’s cheek. “Will you be careful at work?”

“Of course I will, sweetie,” she whispers.

Emily smiles and takes her hand as they enter the building. The instructor greets them with a clipboard and a grin. “Let’s see, are you…”

“Emily Scully,” Scully supplies. Emily jumps at the sound of the unfamiliar name, and Scully feels a rush of guilt.

The instructor offers Emily her hand. “Nice to meet you, Emily.”

“Hi,” Emily says quietly, shaking her hand.

“Why don’t you run in there and find something to play with?”

“Okay.” She turns and tugs on Scully’s blazer. “Bye, Dana.”

Scully kisses the top of her head before she turns and walks into the classroom. Scully watches to see if she finds something to play with before turning to the instructor and explaining, “I recently adopted her. I don’t think she’s used to my last name yet.”

“Oh.” The woman blinks, resembling an owl with her large glasses. “Well, we usually just call the children by their first names.”

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. You’ll call me if anything goes wrong?”

“Yes. But she’ll be fine.” She pats Scully's shoulders reassuringly. She's probably very used to dealing with nerve-shot moms, but she's also probably never dealt with these types of nerves.

“Okay,” Scully says again. She looks over the shoulder of the woman. Emily’s sitting at a plastic yellow table, hunched over paper with crayons scattered. _She’ll be all right_ , she tries to tell herself, but she doesn’t quite believe it.

///

She should’ve known that her first day back at work would be anything but ordinary, but she didn’t quite expect the newspapers painting Mulder with a skeptic’s brush, being confronted by Jeffrey Spender, and walking smack-dab back into the familiarity of her own abduction. The one that gave her Emily.

Scully convinces Mulder to join them for dinner. “Would you mind sitting with her after I put her down?” she asks. “I want to visit Cassandra Spender, and it’s better if Emily doesn’t know I’m gone.”

“You’re not going to heed Jeffrey Spender’s warnings about staying away from his mother?” he teases, twisting a pencil in his hand like a baton.

“That was for you, not me,” she reminds him. “And… I want to warn her.”

Mulder doesn’t comment on that, but he agrees to babysit. “But only if I get to talk on the phone and watch whatever I want on TV,” he adds, making her laugh.

Emily seems to have adjusted well to the daycare, although she latches onto Scully’s hand and doesn’t let go. She recaps her day in a quiet but excited monologue, eating fries and swinging her legs, banging her shoes against the back of the booth. Mulder listens and laughs and teases Emily, but she can tell his mind is still on Cassandra Spender and a conspiracy he doesn't believe in.

Emily doesn’t bother questioning why Scully is still in her work clothes, or why Mulder is sitting in the living room, as they go through the bedtime routine. After they read a story, she lets her head loll on Scully’s shoulder. “I missed you,” she says.

Scully presses a kiss to Emily’s head. “Missed you, too.” She smooths the covers out. “Do you not want to go back?”

“I do,” Emily says, somewhat firmly. “The kids were nice. But…” She grabs a fistful of Scully’s jacket. “Can you come, too?”

She laughs quietly. “I’m sorry, sweetie, I have to go to work. But listen - hey, look at me for a second.” She tips Emily’s chin so that their matching eyes meet. “We’re going to see each other every night, and on the weekends, and in the mornings, okay? It’s almost better this way, if you think about it. This way, we don’t get tired of each other.”

“I wouldn’t get tired,” Emily protests, eyelids drooping.

Scully pokes her in the side. “You would, trust me. I know it’s gonna be hard at first, but this is the way it has to be. And I know you enjoy playing with the others, right?”

“Mmhmm.” She yawns, burrowing under the blankets, eyes closed.

“It’ll be okay,” Scully adds quietly, to reassure herself as well.

“Night, Dana,” Emily murmurs into her pillow.

“Night,” Scully whispers, switching off the lamp.

“Hopefully, she won’t wake up,” she tells Mulder in the living room. “If she does, though, tell her I’ll be back as soon as possible. Don’t fall prey to the puppy dog eyes.”

“You know me, Scully, I’m weak.”

“There’s plenty of drinks and food in the fridge, you know your way around the apartment.” She pauses, straightening her jacket. It’s been awhile since she’s dressed this formally. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

“Anything for you, Scully,” he says like he’s teasing, but she can tell he’s not.

When she comes back, Emily hasn’t woken up, and Mulder’s sitting with the lights off and the TV on. “How did it go?” he says in a low voice, just louder than the soft noise of the TV as she sits beside him.

“It went well,” Scully says with a sigh. “All things considered, I mean. But it was… she wants to be abducted.” She sighs, burying her face in her hands. “I mean… I can’t say I completely regret my abduction. I have Emily now. But what with everything that’s happened, it’s hard not to.”

Mulder doesn’t say anything, but he wraps an arm around her shoulders, and she leans into him, just a little, just enough.

“I wanted to ask if they’d taken her ova,” she says finally from behind her splayed fingers. “If she had a child like Em, if her child had lived…”

“Scully,” Mulder says softly. His warm fingers are pressed to the back of her neck, over her chip. “We’re going to find what cured Emily. This is all going to be over someday. I promise.”

She doesn’t quite believe him, but stays leaning into him for a long time.

///

Mulder goes home sometime during the night, and Scully easily forgets it because they have to go to Skyland Mountain, to the site of a mass burning. Mulder stiffens as they pass the sign, but she is fine on the way up - she was in a trunk, and didn’t see most of it. As soon as they reach the top, it hits her - here is where she was abducted, and she can almost hear Barry’s voice in her ear, feel his hand in her hair as he forced her over the hill, see the light and then nothing… Mulder squeezes her hand comfortingly before he walks out into the smoke and chaos of firemen and police. She stays under the shelter, amid the yellow-bagged bodies. They go to visit Cassandra Spender again, and as they walk down the hall, Scully feels a strange pulling sensation in her neck.

She tries to ignore it.

///

The phone booth holds no answers, and neither does Jeffrey Spender. Mulder tries Scully’s cell phone three times on the way back, but she doesn’t answer. He checks the clock - 5:15, past time to get Emily.

He shows his badge to the woman in the yellow sweater behind the front desk. “I’m Special Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI. I’m looking for my partner, Dana Scully - her daughter goes to daycare here. Has she been by to pick her up?”

The woman flips through a file. “Emily Scully?” He nods. “And you're Fox Mulder? You’re put down as her emergency contact.” He looks down at the paper - Mrs. Scully is the only family member written down, but there he is, put down as emergency contact, _Family Friend_ written in the space of _Relationship to Child_.

“We haven’t seen Ms. Scully - we were going to call by the half hour mark,” says the woman as she cranes her neck to examine Mulder’s ID and badge. “FBI agent, huh?”

“Yes,” Mulder says, mind already buzzing, thinking about the chip in Scully’s neck. “Would I be able to take Emily home now?”

Emily exits the back room a minute later, lunch box banging against her leg. “Mulder! Where’s Dana?”

He doesn’t want to tell Emily that he doesn’t know, that there’s a good chance that her mother is being burned somewhere with another group of abductees, and that there’s a good chance he won’t make it to her in time. “Listen, Em,” he says carefully. “I’m going to take you over to see your Grandma for a little while, okay?”

“Okay. Where’s Dana?”

“She’s, um, out,” Mulder lies. Damn, he doesn’t have a car seat. He drives to the parking garage very carefully and extracts the one from Scully’s car. He tries Scully’s cell phone four more times on the way to Baltimore. Emily asks repeatedly about when Dana’s going to be back. Finally, he just says, “I don’t know, okay?” He tries to keep his voice calm, but it takes a lot of effort.

Mrs. Scully isn’t any happier with his vague answers about Scully’s whereabouts, but he doubts she’d appreciate the truth. “But why wouldn’t she go and get Emily from preschool?” she keeps saying, hands shaking a little as she wrings a dish towel between them.

“She’s going to be fine,” Mulder lies. “I’m going to find her.”

Scully’s mother looks worried, probably angry at him - but then she looks over her shoulder, and her face softens a fraction. “Thank you for going and getting Emily and bringing her here,” she says. The dish towel makes a snapping sound between her palms.

He drives back to the Hoover building with a car seat strapped in the back, and tries to focus. He gives Skinner the basic details of the case, retreats to the office to look for popular abduction sights. _But which one… which one_ … He stays there until late in the night, when a call from Skinner comes through. “Agent Mulder, there’s been another mass burning at the Ruskin Dam in Pennsylvania.”

His hand grips the phone tightly so that he doesn’t drop it. “Scully…?” he breathes.

“We’re not sure, but it makes sense, if what you told me is true.” Skinner sounds as unsure as he always does. He sighs, and adds, “I’m headed up there right now. I’d suggest you follow.”

Mulder’s eyes fall on a new picture tacked up on the wall as Skinner hangs up, one he hadn’t realized Scully had brought. It’s a picture of Emily in her blue coat, hair drooping in her eyes as she smiles tentatively into the camera, the swings at the park behind her.

Mulder grabs his coat and tears out of the office.

///

Every time it happens he thinks it cannot possible get any worse, that he cannot possibly feel any worse than he does in this moment. He walks through the line of charred bodies, thinks every single one is her, that this is it, he’s finally lost her to a damn fire and a chip that saved her life. Relief pours through him like an ocean when he finds her unconscious on a stretcher. He waits by her hospital bed, brushes hair off of her face and smiles down at her when she wants to know the time.

“Mulder, what am I doing here?” she asks him in growing horror. “Where’s Emily?”

“Emily’s fine,” he says quickly. “I took her to your mother’s. I called them when I got here. You were airlifted here in vasogenic shock.”

Her horror only grows when she realizes what happened, where she was, what she doesn’t remember. He is shooed away by the nurse, but he wants to stay and reassure her. He knows she’s thinking about Emily.

They talk later in her hospital room. She doesn’t remember anything, doesn’t know why she survived. There is an explanation for why she was there, but none for why she survived. She wants her memories back.

They can hear Emily and Mrs. Scully before they see them, Emily’s sneakers slapping against the linoleum. “Dana!” she practically shouts, barreling towards the bed.

Mulder catches her before she can jump up, muttering, “Whoa, sweetie, be careful,” as he sets her on the ground.

“Dana, what happened? What’s wrong?” Mrs. Scully tugs at her sleeves.

Scully strokes her daughter’s hair. “I’m fine. I’m fine,” she says. “It’s a… long story, Mom.”

Mulder slips past them silently  and out into the hall. He doesn't deserve to be here.

///

“You said we'd see each other every night,” Emily says accusingly, her chin trembling. She thumbs her mouth like she is going to insert it. She has never sucked her thumb in the time she's lived here.

Scully searches for the right words - how can she explain herself when she can't even remember? “Emily…” her mother says warningly, sounding uncomfortable.

“Mom, could you give us a moment alone?” Scully says in a soft voice. Her mother nods, runs her hair over Scully's hair once before leaving.

She turns to her daughter. “Emily, sweetie, listen…”

“I don't wanna listen!” she shouts. “You left! Just like Mommy and Daddy!”

“Em,” she says, almost pleading. “I wouldn't have left if I had the choice.”

Emily pauses, staring at her curiously, her little forehead wrinkling. “Huh?”

“I didn't _want_ to go away last night.” Scully tries to explain it - probably better not to mention the chip.

Emily looks over her. “What happened?” she says softly. “Did you get hurt?”

“A little. But I'm fine.” She smooths her daughter's hair, although it's tangle-free - her mother has four kids and lots of experience. Well. Three kids, now. “But hey, listen, okay? I would never leave you forever.” _Not if I can help it, at least._ “Remember what I said the night Mulder slept on the couch? I am always gonna come back. And that doesn't mean I won't have to leave, but you'll know I'm going to leave next time, and I'll be back.”

Emily looks up at her curiously, blinking away tears. Scully continues to stroke her hair, offer what little comfort she can. “I don’t like the hospital,” she says finally, with a wrinkled nose. She climbs up on the bed beside Scully, head drooping against her shoulder. “Do you?”

“No, Em, I can honestly say I can’t,” Scully says. She kisses her daughter's head. “Are we good?”

“We're good,” Emily whispers.

///

Dana stays home for a couple days and lets Emily stay with her, although she comments a few times on how they’re going to have to get into the routine of things soon and this is a special treat. Emily can tell she’s sorry for what happened, though - her eyes show it as they stare down at her when she pulls her up onto the couch, and lets her have an extra two hours of TV time. She wraps them both in blankets, and naps with an arm over Emily’s side, sleeping through all the good programs. Emily can tell not to touch the angry red marks on her skin.

Mulder calls and sounds sad from the speaker nudged up next to the top of Emily’s head. Something about her already being home recovering after only two days back at work.

“I’m fine, Mulder, just resting,” Dana says. “Emily was scared. We need some time to adjust, you know? But _I’m fine_.”

Mulder says something else about this never should’ve happened, and Emily stops listening, rests her head against Dana’s shoulder as she shifts her attention to the TV.

“You’re my mom, right?” she asks Dana later around a mouthful of Moose Tracks while the sun casts lazy beams across the couch.

Dana freezes with a spoonful halfway to her mouth. “Well,” she says, lowering it to the carton. “Technically, I am. Do you, uh, know what genetics are?”

Emily shakes her head.

“Well, genetics are what make us us. Like we both have blue eyes because of genetics.” Dana pauses, chewing her lip. “Some people… took the parts of me needed to make you and made you without me knowing. And they gave you to your parents. And I didn’t know about you until last December. So, yes, biologically, I am your mother.”

Emily is confused by the big words, but she thinks she understands what Dana is saying. She is the birth mother that Mommy had talked about when explaining her adoption. Emily sucks on a peanut butter cup, scrapes out the peanut butter with her front teeth, looks up at Dana.

“But,” Dana rushes to add. “I don’t necessarily have to be your mother. You could think of me as the person who takes care of you. A friend… or, no, not a friend, maybe an aunt.”

“I call your mommy Grandma,” Emily tells her. The ice cream is melting. She stirs it furiously, creating a vanilla-and-chocolate swirl whirlpool.

“That’s true,” Dana says, chewing on her lip again.

“I look like your sister, Melissa. The one that died.” Her grandmother mentioned it when she'd slept over at her house, pointing out Dana and her brothers and sister in faded photographs. Bill, Melissa, Dana, Charlie. A family.

Dana jerks, and her eyes go to a spot near the door. “Yes,” she says softly, brushing strands of Emily’s hair away from her cheeks. “Yes, you do. That’s how I found you, actually.”

“Was she bigger or littler than you?” Emily asks out of curiosity. She wanted a little brother or sister before, in California, but now she wishes she had someone big, to protect her and Dana.

Well, maybe Mulder could  protect her and Dana, actually. Like Dana protects her and Mulder.

“Bigger,” Dana says, and she’s got a funny smile on her face. “She treated me like such a pest when we were little. But when we grew up, we became friends.”

“Oh,” says Emily, with some jealousy. She thinks, _if I had a little brother or sister, I wouldn’t treat them like a pest_. “I’m sorry Melissa died.”

Dana’s eyes go to that spot again, her hands starting their motion up and down Emily’s hair again. “Me too.”

///

Mulder shows up later on the first night, after Emily’s already asleep in Scully’s bed. She’ll have to carry her to bed later. “Someone was waiting for me when I got home tonight,” he says wearily, collapsing on the couch next to her.

“Oh, God,” Scully says. Her hand moves to the hollow of her throat, but her cross isn’t there. “Who?”

“Krycek. He was rambling on about alien colonization and plans to stop it by a rebellion. There was a note with Wiekamp Air Force Base written on the back. I saw… something, I don’t really understand what it was, but-”

“He sent you to an air force base?” she says. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t want to drag you into it, Scully, enough’s happened already.”

“You’re my partner,” Scully says tightly. “I’m supposed to go with you to these things.”

“Not on risk of your life! This isn’t your fight, Scully.”

“It wasn’t originally, but it became my fight. Don’t you dare try to tell me that this isn’t personal, Mulder. Don’t you dare.” She is prepared to list the reasons if he needs to hear them. _My sister, my daughter, you, me._

They’re silent for a minute.

“I’m sorry,” Mulder says finally. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

She doesn’t say anything. Mulder keeps going. “I asked him about Emily. About the cure. He says he doesn’t know much about it, or who did it, but he knows that they are pissed. He thought I’d found a way to do it.”

“She wasn’t supposed to live,” Scully says, palms of her hands coming up to hide her face. It seems like she is always hiding behind her hands nowadays. She feels like sobbing. “She was supposed to die alone in that goddamn hospital.”

Mulder touches her arm. “Yes, she was, Scully,” he says in a soft voice. “Everything happens for a reason, right?” He is trying to comfort her; it is not working.

///

Sometimes Scully regrets it, thinks _how could I bring a little girl into this life?_ when she feels the sting of the burns on her hands. She wonders if she is selfish for wanting Emily to be near her. She almost calls Mulder, but doesn’t, because she knows he’ll be comforting (he’ll probably blame himself), but she also knows it’ll come back to the same point he’s been emphasizing: that she needs to leave him. And she knows it’s selfish to stay, to repeatedly put herself in danger, but she can’t leave him, she can’t.

She cries in the bathroom with the shower running so Emily can’t hear, and leaves twisted Kleenex in the trash. She sleeps with a gun in her bedside table - telling Emily, very firmly, that the drawer is off-limits - to protect her daughter the best that she can, but she fears it’s not enough.

///

Emily plays on the playground, and she and Mulder work on paperwork on a park bench. It’s cloudy, the sky a dreary kind of grey. It’s a new case, in a forest almost two hours away from DC. They’d spent the majority of the day in the car, lightly arguing about the contents of the case - Sasquatch sightings. Scully isn’t going to push him - she knows he’s only taken this type of case for her, since she doesn’t want to travel. She’d caught sight of a file - something about a blind woman in Delaware - before he’d shoved it under a pile of papers, and hadn’t mentioned it all day. Still, she’s worried they’re going to get called out for spending Bureau funds on hunting Bigfoot. Also, they’re doing paperwork on a park bench. Mulder’s gnawing on his pen absently, and Emily’s swinging, short red-blonde braids flying out behind her, blue jacket flapping in the wind. “She looks like a little bird,” Mulder says around the barrel of the pen, and she can feel the rush of affection in his words. She smiles.  

Mulder gives Emily a back-ride to the restaurant near the park. Scully chastises him about being careful, but really it doesn't matter. She trusts him with their lives.

“So when did you guys met?” Emily asks around a fry in the red vinyl booth.

“Chew and swallow first, sweetie,” Scully says, patting Emily’s back. Mulder sits on the opposite side. “It was 1993.”

“She was assigned to spy on me,” Mulder supplies, waving a fry  dramatically.

“Not spy, Mulder…”

“It was spying,” he mouths to Emily.

Scully rolls her eyes. “And we worked on the, uh, monster cases together.”

Emily wants to know more, the intimate details that make Scully miss being young and stupid, that year before everything went to hell when they were just Scully and Mulder and they didn’t have to save the world. When the waitress brings them their check, Mulder scoops it up before she can so much as make a pass at it.

///

“Did you and Dana really find Bigfoot?” Emily asks, shading browns on her paper.

“Yep! Look, I got a picture,” Mulder says, handing her the Polaroid. He'd snapped it in some brief moment of insanity before the flash had scared the creature away. Scully's partially in the picture, gun extended, yelling at him to put the damn camera down. (She'd yelled a lot that day actually, afterwards in the car, stuff about how if he was going to drag her off on some ridiculous wild goose chase that the least he could do was to keep his head - and his gun - in a potentially dangerous situation. He'd pulled off the road and bought her a milkshake to appeal to her gentler nature.)

Emily looks up from her paper and studies it seriously. “That's a bear,” she says confidently.

There's a sound, something between a choke and a snort, from the kitchen. Mulder turns to Scully, who has a hand over her mouth to hide her smile. He points to the brown blob-looking thing. “No, it’s Bigfoot, see? That’s way too big to be a bear.”

“Then why does it have a snout?”

“... Bigfoot doesn’t necessarily _not_ have a snout.”

Scully’s full-on laughing at this point, and trying her best to hide it. Emily crosses her arms, and says determinedly, “Get a better picture.”

“Remember, I saw it! In _person._ ” He jabs a finger at Scully. “She saw it, too.”

“Was it a Bigfoot, Dana?”

Scully smirks, and he knows he's not going to get any support from her. “It all happened so fast, and I was focused on Mulder and his camera. It _could_ have been a bear.”

Mulder lets out a frustrated huff, taking the Polaroid back. “Okay, fine, I’m done. No more trying to convince Scully women; it’s clearly never going to happen. You can have them there during a sighting, even, and they’ll still deny.” He pokes Emily’s side to show her he is kidding, and she giggles. “What's the word I'm looking for, Scully… Doubting Thomas?”

“Okay, okay,” Scully says, still laughing as she approaches the table. “Let’s not pull out the Biblical insults, Mulder. I need to head out.” She focuses her attention on Emily, leaning down so that they are nose to nose. “I know you're upset about me leaving, but we talked about this. Mulder’s gonna fix you some dinner, and put you to bed, and whatever else you want to do… within reason.” She adds the last part pointedly. “No pulling tricks cause you know he doesn't know a lot about how things go around here. Okay?”

“Okay,” Emily says sweetly, planting a kiss on Scully's nose. “Night, Dana. Have fun at your meeting. Come check on me when you get home?”

“Okay, but you'd better be asleep.” She kisses Emily's nose, and then turns to Mulder. “Be back in a few hours.” She kisses his cheek before heading to the door.

Mulder’s face grows hot as he turns to watch her go. When he turns back to Emily, she is grinning mischievously. “She kissed you,” she says in a sly little sing-song voice.

“Yeah, uh, I don’t know why she did that,” he says, trying to change the subject. “What do you think, what do you want to do?”

Emily considers, tipping her head to the side. “Tell me a story about you and Dana.”

Now there's a subject he can work with. “Okay, what kind do you wa-”

“Have you ever kissed her before?” She grins again, looking proud of herself.

Well, when she was dying of cancer… “Not really.” He hopes that a little girl cannot see through him.

“Oh.” Emily looks disappointed. “Well, okay then. Tell me a story like Bigfoot. But one with proof.”

“But the picture was-”

“Better than the picture.” Emily crosses her arms, and gives him a stern Scully look.

“Okay, okay.” He considers this for a moment. “Uh, so Dana and I had to go to this stupid thing that would help us be better partners.”

“Were you bad partners before?” Emily’s foot hits the table leg.

“ _I_ don’t think so. But we had to go, so we were in the backseat with these two unbelievably annoying agents who kept going on and on about all the dumb activities we were gonna have to do.”

Emily giggles.

“But luckily for us, our car got stopped because there’d been sightings of this creature out in the woods.” Probably best to edit out the killings, and avoid potential nightmares.

“What kind of creature?”

“Nobody had seen anything of it except these glowing red eyes. And so I decided to stay and look into it. And for some reason, your mom decided to stay with me.”

“For some reason?”

“Well… I didn’t think it was the kind of thing she’d like.”

Emily shrugs. “So what happens next?”

“Well, we went out looking for it in the woods with these two other police officers. Different from the ones in the car. But we lost them.”

“What happened to them?”

She’s leaning forward like she’s intrigued, eyes wide and chin balanced on her hands. It’s the best audience he’s had in awhile. “The creature took them,” Mulder says. “And it tried to take me, too, but Sc- Dana saved me. And we had to spend the night out there in the woods cause we had no way out.”

“Was it scary?”

“No, not really,” he says. He can still feel Scully’s arms around him and her tuneless voice filling the Florida woods. He'll leave that out, though, it'll only encourage her. “Have you ever been camping? It was like that.”

Emily shakes her head. “Uh-uh. Daddy wanted to go, but Mommy didn’t like the outdoors, she said.” And it’s strange to hear that word out of her mouth, even though it’s fucking impossible that she’d ever be calling him that. No. Never, probably.

“Well, maybe we can go someday. The woods aren’t so scary if you’ve got people with you.”

Emily’s eyes light up a little at this. “Really?”

“Sure, you’ve just got to convince Dana.” Mulder smiles knowingly - their trips to the forest never end well.

“I will,” Emily says confidently. “So what happens next?”

“Well, Dana fell down in a hole the next morning.” Emily giggles with delight. “And she found out where the creatures had been taking people, so we were able to get them out.”

Emily's eyes are bright with fascination. “So what were the monsters? You didn’t tell.”

“Well…” He draws the word out for suspense factor. “At first, I thought they might be Mothmen. You know what those are?”

She shakes her head.

“Well, there's a story about a creature that's part moth, part man. And I thought that might be what we were hunting. But then I thought they might be Spanish conquistadors, who landed in Florida 450 years ago,” he tells her seriously.

Emily lifts her head to look at him. “You’re full of it,” she tells him, just as seriously.

He laughs. “Where’d you hear that?”

“TV. Before Dana changed the channel.” Emily goes back to her picture, apparently bored with his story. “Besides, where’s your proof?”

“Ask Dana.”

“Ask Dana if they were Spanish con-kiss-doors?” The word tangles up in Emily’s mouth.

“Ask Dana if the story’s true. If she says it is, you’ve got your proof.”

“Okay.” Emily turns her attention back to her picture. “Can we have pizza?”

He orders half cheese, half meat lovers, which takes some negotiation on Mulder’s part (apparently three year olds, or at least this one, are opposed to pepperoni, sausage, and bacon), and eat it at the table, because he doesn’t care what Emily says about having eaten a million bajillion times on the couch, he’s not going to deal with Scully angry over a pizza sauce stain. Emily sprawls out on the rug after and watches two episodes of _Blue’s Clues_ while Mulder works on the Bigfoot report on the couch. (He suspects Skinner won’t be too happy about this one.) He loses track of time, and by the time he looks up, it’s a half-hour past Emily’s bedtime, and she’s fast asleep on the rug. He doesn’t bother waking her up, just scoops her up and carries her to bed.

Scully comes home an hour later. “Hey,” she says quietly. “How was she?”

Mulder grins. “You’ve got a great kid, Scully. There’s some leftover pizza in the fridge, by the way.”

“Thanks.” She opens the refrigerator. “So, no problems?”

“She didn’t believe the story of the woods in Florida last fall, but other than that, no. I told her to ask you. About Florida, I mean.”

Scully smiles faintly. She sets the cardboard box down on the table, and pulls her wallet out of her purse.

“Whoa, Scully.” He holds his hand up like he’s directing traffic. “What are you doing?”

She pauses with her wallet half-open. “Mulder, you spent your Friday night taking care of my child.”

“And it was my pleasure.” He crosses the room, covers her hand with his as he closes the wallet. “C’mon, Scully, with everything between us, you really think you’d have to pay me?”

Scully fumbles with the wallet. “At least let me reimburse you for the pizza…”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He moves his hand away from hers, but the warmth of her skin still lingers on his palm.

She smiles up at him again. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Mulder scoops his keys up from the counter. “Good night, Scully.”

“Night, Mulder.”

He gets halfway to the door before he remembers the kiss from earlier. “Hey, Scully?”

“Hmm?”

 _Ask, just ask about it, what can it hurt_ … “I may have mentioned camping to Emily. If that’s something you’d want to try sometime.”

She’s still smiling. “Sounds great.”

When she smiles at him like this, he thinks he might could make a move. But something still stops him. Some part of him is still unsure.

///

She takes Emily to church on Easter. The Sims weren’t religious past the point of Easter egg hunts that Emily recounts, but she’s been flipping through the old picture-book Bible from Scully’s childhood that Maggie had brought over one afternoon, and asking questions about biblical figures. Scully figures Easter is a good a place to start as any.

Father McCue approaches them after the service. “Dana,” he says. “Do you have a moment? I’d like to speak with you in private.” He seems to see the little girl holding her hand for the first time. “Hello there.”

“Father, this is Emily,” Scully says, swinging her hand a little. “I don’t know if my mother mentioned her?”

“She did, actually. Nice to meet you, Emily.” Father McCue offers Emily his hand, and she shakes it tentatively. “You can set her up outside my office if you like. I have some coloring books.”

“Would you like that, sweetie?” Scully asks softly, and Emily nods, a pleased smile making her way across her face; Scully suspects she found the ceremony boring.

He tells her about the Kernoffs, their daughter Dara, and she can’t help but feel almost guilty. That could’ve been her, would’ve been her if it hadn’t been for whatever it was that cured Emily. Something that they still can’t explain. She agrees to go and see the Kernoffs on Monday.

///

Four girls are dead. Gone to heaven, she assumes. But she doesn’t know why she let Roberta Dyer go, doesn’t know what could’ve convinced her to let her die. _What if it had been Emily?_ she thinks. _What if it had been your little girl?_

She does the only thing that seems right and asks for forgiveness she doesn’t feel she deserves. She goes home and reads to Emily in bed, guilt penetrating her entire being. _It could’ve been her_ , she thinks. _It could’ve been her_.

“You did everything you could, Scully,” Mulder tells her the next day, and she just doesn't feel like _everything she could_ is enough.

///

It seems insane when it happens that Mulder could be a traitor. Mulder, who has saved a thousand lives before, hers what seems like a thousand times. Mulder, who has fought for justice for his sister for years. Mulder, who competed with Emily in a cookie-eating competition the other day on her crayon-stained rug. Mulder, who might’ve let a man who is a terrorist and murderer escape.

It’s too insane to comprehend, but the evidence is there. Scully follows him because she doesn’t know what else to do. Maybe she can pull him away from the edge. It’s both a relief and a wave of terror when she finds out he’s undercover.

She waits in his apartment when he returns with a broken finger, and sets it in the dark of his living room. His head sags against the back of the couch wearily after he tells her about Bremer, eyes closed. “You shouldn’t be here, Scully,” he tries again.

“Not this argument again.” She’s trying to tease, but it comes out lopsided and tired.

“I don’t want you to be in danger.”

“I’m not,” she insists. She has a gun.

“Where’s Em tonight?”

“At my mom’s. She’s okay. She likes it over there.”

His eyes open. They’re almost black in the dark, looking at her. “Scully. Please. Get out of here. Go to your mother’s.”

“Mulder…”

“Scully.” His voice is sharp. “Please.”

She leaves because she doesn’t know what else to do. She lingers in the doorway, says, “I’m still working this case, Mulder. I’m not leaving you behind.”

He doesn’t say anything, just closes his eyes again. She locks the door behind her.

///

When it is all over, Scully drives Mulder home. He's quiet. His hand rests on the dashboard, his splint screaming at her.

“What happened?” she asks.

Mulder won't meet her eyes as he mumbles, “I thought they were going to shoot me.”

Scully tightens her grip on the wheel.

“They had me on my fucking knees, Scully. I thought I was going to die.”

She looks at him. His gaze is tight, guarded. He's pushing her away again.

“Mulder…” she starts.

He can't look at her. “I would've missed you,” he says. “And Emily.”

Scully blinks back tears. God, how many times will she come this close to losing him? Would she even have known if he'd died? How long would she have had to wonder? Maybe forever. These people know how to cover their tracks.  

“Mulder,” she says again. But she can't say what she wants to say in the moment. She doesn't know how to put it. So instead she says, “Will you come to the house with me? Emily's missed you.”

His hand tightens on the dashboard. “I - no.”

She blinks. “No?”

“I need to be alone right now, Scully.” He’s still not looking at her, head bent over the dashboard. He looks like he’s praying, but she knows he’s not.

“Okay,” she says softly, even though every part of her wants to pull Mulder to her and never let go, lock the three of them in her apartment where it’s safe and never leave. But no, even her apartment’s not safe. Duane Barry found her there. Melissa was shot there.

“Okay, Mulder,” she says again, and reaches for his hand. He pulls it away.

 _We would’ve missed you_ , she mouths at him, but he still doesn’t look at her.   
///

Mulder shows up hours later, after Emily’s already in bed. He’s clutching his gun in his wounded hand, knuckles almost as white as the bandages. “Scully,” he says, and stops.

She opens the door wider. “Mulder, what is it?” She pulls him into the darkened apartment by the lapels of his coat.

“They had a tape,” he says, wavers. “Of you and me, talking. I was scared that they might… come after you and Emily.”

“Oh, Mulder.” She wraps her arms around him, burying her face against his shoulder.

“I shouldn’t have left,” he says. “I just… couldn’t stop feeling that gun against my skull.”

“It’s okay,” she says, curling her hands into the back of his shirt. “We’re okay.” Only Mulder would almost die and be worried about someone else. “They're gone, I think. We're both safe.”

His arms come up around her, pressing them together. He is warm. “Um, can I stay on your couch?” he mutters into her hair.

“Of course.” She takes his hand, leads him to the couch, throws a blanket over him and sits beside him. When he looks at her with those eyes that make her melt on the inside, she simply says, “I’m staying, too.”

His good hand curls around hers, their fingers intertwining. The other stays in a firm grip around his Sig as they fall asleep in separate corners of the couch, hands still clasped together the way they were on a leather couch, months ago.

///

He feels like he should be asking for forgiveness, when Scully’s saved him again, when he’s almost died twice in a month time span, and he’s right back on Scully’s couch because he wasn’t going to push her away again, didn’t want to. She believed him, saved him again. His wrists itch around the indents.

“Dana won’t tell me about what happened in Chicago,” Emily says, sitting next to him on the couch. She’s wearing a new nightgown, and the same too-big socks. “Just that Mr. Skinner said she had to go, and she was sorry, and I would have fun with Grandma.”

“And did you?” Mulder asks, grinning a little at the _Mr._ Skinner. Just like Scully.

She grins. “Yeah. Grandma makes good brownies.”

He tries to smile, but it slips. Almost getting stung by some monster is pretty tiring. Plus the usual “everyone-thinks-I'm-crazy” low.

“Why were you in the hospital again? Were you hurt?” Emily’s eyes are wide and sympathetic.

Mulder tries to remember when he figured out that he loved this little girl, Scully’s daughter, but he can’t. It just happened. She’s hard not to love.

“Not exactly,” he says. “I, uh, there was a monster that no one believed me about, so they put me in a hospital.”

Emily wrinkles her nose. “That's silly.”

He'd laugh if it wasn't for everything that's happened. “You're right, it is.”

“Did Dana believe you?”

 _Eventually._ “Yes.”

Emily draws closer and wraps her arms around his middle. “Then I believe you too.”

It's funny what hearing those words do to him, even from a tiny three year old wearing a yellow Snoopy nightgown. “Thanks, Em,” Mulder says thickly.

“Just watch. I won't let them put you in the hospital again,” she adds in a fierce voice.

He has to laugh at this. She is Scully’s daughter.

///

They find their office scorched, darker than it's ever been down there, poster charred around the edges. Scully takes hold of his arms and steps closer, resting her head against his shoulder in an attempt at comfort. It doesn’t work. Mulder pulls away after a minute, turns and walks out of the office without a word. She doesn’t attempt to follow him.

Emily is waiting in the hall with Skinner, who must have pushed his way past the firemen to go and find her daughter. It was stupid to bring her, but she didn’t have anywhere else to go. They were all three at Mulder’s apartment when they got the call, Emily beside him on the couch. Scully takes her hand and thanks her boss for watching her. “Dana, why do you smell funny?” Emily asks.

“There was a… fire in our office,” she says. “But I’m okay. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not.” Emily steps into the elevator with her, looking smaller than usual. “Where did Mulder go?”

Scully squeezes her small hand. “He’s… very upset right now, sweetie. Our work meant a lot to him. He needs some alone time.”

“So we’re not going back to his house?”

“No,” she says hollowly. Not for the first time, she sees him again, holding Diana Fowley’s hand. It’s probably stupid of her to react this way, probably petty, they’ve done nothing to indicate an attachment past friendship, she has no ultimatum on what he does with his life. But she can still see him holding her daughter, letting her fall asleep on his shoulder, sleeping on her couch and whispering her name in his sleep. She isn’t being fair, but he isn’t being fair, either. “No, we’re gonna go home.”

///

Mulder takes sick days. She goes into the office methodically, starts to head down to clean it up but is shooed off, told they’ll be working on other assignments. She’s assigned to the task force for a serial killer. Emily keeps going to daycare or her mother’s alternately. She asks about when Mulder is coming back, but Scully doesn’t have a good answer. She talks to Caswell from the VCS about juggling kids and work. Caswell has a wife, though.

They catch the killer the day before Mulder comes back. She’s been in the morgue most of the time, methodically doing autopsies. It feels familiar, the way it did years ago, except there has been no talk of splitting them up. He comes up behind her mid-autopsy, saying, “What’s up, doc?” and making her jump nearly a foot.

“Mulder,” she says, setting the scalpel down. “You startled me. I didn’t know when you were coming back.”

“Congratulations on catching Buckworth.” He leans against an empty metal table casually.

She peels her gloves off. “That wasn’t me. I just presented my autopsy findings.”

“That means a little bit of it was you.” He smiles like it hasn’t been a week since they’ve talked. “How’s Em?”

“She’s fine.” Scully drops the gloves in a trash can and crosses her arms. “She’s missed you.”

“I’m sorry. I needed some time.”

“I know you did.” She wants to touch him. She holds herself back. “Does anyone know you’re back yet?”

“You mean the people upstairs?” He’s still grinning, as if his whole life didn’t go up in flames only a week ago. “More or less. I’m supposed to tell you - we have a meeting with Skinner in twenty minutes.”

Skinner tells them that they have been assigned to investigate a bomb threat in Dallas, and that their plane leaves in an hour. “Sir,” Scully says in a sharply-carved voice. “I requested no out-of-town assignments.”

He has the grace to look embarrassed. “Can you get someone to take care of Emily again?”

“I do, but that’s not the point. We’re both still adjusting, and I’d like it if I didn’t have to leave with such little notice. I believe I mentioned that when we were assigned to the case in Chicago.” She sharpens the word _Chicago_ \- she's still upset about that.

“I’m sorry, Agent Scully, but this order is coming from above me. There’s nothing I can do.” Skinner does look sorry, to his credit. They've had an unusual relationship since she went into remission.

She calls her mother, then Emily’s preschool. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I have to go because of work. But it’ll only be for a couple days, okay? And I know you’ll have fun at Grandma’s,” she says in an attempt to soothe after the news is broken.

“Okay,” Emily says, somewhat reluctantly. “But be careful.”

Scully laughs. “I will.”

“Is Mulder there?”

He’s just down the hall, staring somewhat awkwardly at the baseboard molding of the wall. “Yeah, he’s here. He’s going with me.”

“Tell him I said hi.”

She holds the phone away from her face, and calls, “Emily says hi,” down the hall quietly.

“Tell her I said hi back, and I’m sorry I haven’t come over lately,” he calls back. An agent walking past them gives them a strange look. Scully relays his message to Emily.

“Okay.” She sounds satisfied. “I’m gonna go back and finish my tower now. Will you call me?”

“Of course.”

“Make sure you do,” Emily says, more sternly then she should probably be able to get away with, but Scully lets it slide, smiling at her tone. “Bye, Dana.”

“Is she mad?” Mulder asks as Scully hangs up the phone and walks down the hall to join him.

“Better than I thought she’d be, everything considered. It helps that my mom spoils her rotten.”

“Every kid deserves to be spoiled rotten, Scully.” He’s grinning at her again, but she’s not quite ready to fall back into their rhythm. _I don’t think I can give that to her,_ she thinks.

“Let’s go to Dallas, Mulder.”

///

He finds the bomb, because he was always good at sniffing out the answer, but he finds it too late and the building explodes. Scully can still feel the uneven pounding of her heart against her ribs when he’d told her he was locked in with it.

They get motel rooms, intending to fly back in the morning. Mulder appears in her doorway within ten minutes. “I fucked up,” he says. “We’ve got a meeting in the morning.”

“Mulder, you saved all those people,” she says.

“Yeah, but something about that was unsatisfactory, I guess.” He shuts the door as he steps fully into the room. “Maybe the question is whether I can ever do anything satisfactory at the FBI.”

They end up sitting cross-legged on her bed the way they have a thousand times before, the TV on but neither of them watching. The first thing that pops up is a news report of the bombing, and Mulder grabs for the remote and flips it to _The Simpsons_ , which makes her think of Gibson Praise, who reminded her of Emily. She wants to ask about Fowley, but doesn’t.

Instead, they end up relaying stories of their past, which turns to stories about Emily. Scully has a few that Mulder doesn’t know, which make him smile in that nostalgic way he has. They order a pizza and eat it on her bedspread. After a couple of hours, she slides back against the pillows, eyelids drooping. She can still hear the explosion ringing in her ears, feel the violent motion of the car from its force.

“Scully?”

“Mmm?”

“Why don’t you leave?”

She opens her eyes to give him a stern look, and he immediately backtracks. “I just meant… there’s already so much that’s happened to you on this job, and I know you hate leaving Emily, and I know you said you want to find what cured her, but Scully, you know I’d look for it for you.” His eyes have that pleading look again. His hand covers hers. “So… why do you stay?”

She sighs - she thinks she’s mentioned it before. “For you,” she says, closing her eyes again. “I came back for you.”

“To protect me? Cause, Scully…”

“Not just that,” she mutters, turning her face into the pillow. “I miss you.”

There’s nothing but silence after that, silence over the buzz of the TV. And then she feels a brush against her forehead, and a whispered, “Night, Scully.” The door opens and closes.

“Good night,” she whispers to the empty room.

///

Remediation and reassignment, she tells him. They’ll send her away. This is all over, and she’ll have no reason to stay.

“You’re quitting?” he asks incredulously, and half of him feels relieved even as the other half feels horrified. Back and forth between _she’ll leave you_ and _she’ll be safe_ . In the end, _she’ll be safe_ will win out, because it always does.

She hands him his jacket and wishes him luck with sad eyes. He doesn’t know how to respond, how to react, so he goes to a bar directly after being torn apart by a review board. The man finds him there, because the right people always find him and pull him down a rabbit hole. He goes straight to her apartment because where else is he going to go?

“Did I wake you?” he asks when she opens the door. “Or Emily. Did I wake Emily?”

“Emily’s not here, Mulder. She’s still at my mom’s. You didn’t wake me,” she says, letting him in.

“Why didn’t I wake you? It’s three in the morning.”

“Are you drunk, Mulder?” she asks.

“I ... I ... I was until about 20 minutes ago, yeah,” he says sheepishly.

“Was that before or after you decided to come here?”

“What exactly are you implying?”

Scully sighs, rubbing her eyes. “Go home, Mulder.”

“No, get dressed, Scully,” he urges.

“It’s late,” she says, as if he doesn’t know that.

“Get dressed,” he says again.

“What are you doing?”

“Just get dressed, I’ll explain on the way.”

He tells her that he needs her to conduct an autopsy, and is surprised when she agrees. Or maybe he shouldn’t be - he’s asked her to do more ridiculous stuff in their partnership.

She agrees to go with him to Dallas too. “Emily can just stay at my mom’s for a couple more days,” she tells him. “I didn’t tell her I was back. I needed some… time.” They chase leads down dusty Texas roads, and hide from helicopters in corn fields. He grabs her hand when they reach the car and doesn't let go until they reach the airport. Scully keeps fiddling with her collar, like something itches back there.

///

“Salt Lake City, Utah. Transfer effective immediately.”

The words are both terrible and wonderful to hear. _How would she be any safer in Utah?_ he thinks as he turns away. _I wouldn’t be there to protect her_ … and it’s egotistical of him to think he’s the only one who can protect her, but he doesn’t see how anyone else could know what to protect her from.

“I already gave Skinner my letter of resignation.”

His shoulders slump as he breathes a sigh of relief. “Maybe it’s for the best,” he says, still not looking at her.

“Mulder, I can’t believe you would say something like that.”

He turns to look at her. “I can’t believe you’d even consider staying. After everything that’s happened… you’re a mother, Scully, goddamnit.”

“That's the reason I'm leaving!” she says tightly. “For Emily. You keep bringing up this same fucking argument. I’ve told you why I’ve stayed a thousand times, Mulder, and you just keep bringing up the fact that I need to leave.”

“Because you’re too goddamn stubborn to see it any other way!” he practically shouts. “Don't stay for me, Scully, because I'm not worth it, trust me!”

Scully's hands are balled into fists. “Why the fuck are we even having this argument? I'm leaving - there's no argument to be had.”

“All I said was that it was for the best, and you started shouting at me,” Mulder hisses.

“Because you have never let me walk away before, and I'm wondering what could make you do it now.”

She's stunned him into silence.

“I've gotta go,” she says, turning and exiting.

Mulder scrambles to his feet and rushes after her. “Scully, wait,” he says somewhat desperately.

She turns on her heel. “Mulder, I like to think there's more between us then a couple of good work years. But I don't know… has everything we've been through meant anything to you? Or am I just another throwaway partner?”

“God, Scully, no, how could you even think that?” he blurts. “You saved me!” She seems to be stunned into silence so he keeps going, stumbling over the words. “As difficult and as frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You've kept me honest... you've made me a whole person. I owe you everything... Scully, and you owe me nothing.”

Her eyes are already flooding over with tears. He starts to touch her, but stops himself. “I know we’ve argued about this again and again, to the point where it barely even makes sense anymore. And the years we've had on the X Files at the best years of my life. But, Scully… you quitting is for the best. This can’t be your fight, not anymore. If you’re in Utah, then they’ll be able to get to you all the easier. And if you stay here, with me, it’ll have the same ending.”

Scully wipes her eyes fiercely. “Mulder…” she says. “I know this has been your fight for years, but would you… consider quitting with me?”

“I can’t,” he says softly. “If I quit now, they win.”

She nods like she was expecting it, steps forward and buries her head against his shoulder. He pulls her against him gratefully. His shoulder grows damp with her tears. Neither of them speak, their breathing loud in the empty hallway. Scully pulls back and presses her lips against his forehead, and then her own forehead. She smiles shakily at him as they pull back to look at each other. He brings his hands up to cup her neck, overcome by the urge to kiss her. He’s had the urge to kiss her every damn day since that night in the motel room on their first case. He moves in.

She doesn’t move away, tilts her head back like she’s been waiting. He moves closer, closer.

“Ow, Jesus!” Her head jerks to the side, going towards his shoulder.

Mulder closes his eyes briefly. “I’m sorry.”

“No… something stung me.” She reaches behind her collar and pulls out a bee, holding it between them.

He sighs as he runs a hand over her hair. “It must’ve gotten in your shirt.”

“Mulder…” And now there’s a horrified look on her face. “Something’s wrong.”

“What?”

“I’m having lancinating pains in…”

“What?” he stammers.

“...my chest…” she finishes in a gasp.

“Scully,” he says desperately.

“My motor functions are being affected…” She almost collapses into him. “My pulse is thready ... a funny taste in the back of my throat.”

“I think you’re going into anaphylactic shock,” he says as he lowers her to the floor. _God, Scully, Scully..._

“No, Mulder, I have no allergy,” she whispers.

He practically sprints back to his apartment to find the phone. His voice cracks as he talks to the operator. As soon as she assures him that there are paramedics on the way, he is back at Scully’s side. She’s already unconscious, limp when he pulls her into his lap, but she is still breathing. He holds onto her until the paramedics come.

///

The bullet wound on his head stings when he dials Maggie’s number, leaning heavily against the phone booth. _Antarctica_ , he thinks dimly. _Fucking Antarctica_ . Of course these bastards would make it as difficult as possible. Of course the paramedics were working for Them, that’s why they got there so fast, of course they’d take her and shoot him. He’s lucky to even be alive. _Antarctica_ , he thinks again. _Got to go to Antarctica._

Maggie answers the phone with a commanding voice he hasn’t heard since she was in the hospital with cancer. “Fox, what the hell is going on? Where’s Dana? Why were you in the hospital? I talked to Mr. Skinner, and he…”

“I’m fine,” Mulder says. “I’m - I know where she is. I’m going to get her.”

“Is she in danger?”

“I’m going to _save_ her,” he says firmly, desperately. “Emily can’t hear you, can she?”

“She’s upstairs, and she’s worried about her mother.” Maggie's voice is sharp.

“Good. I don’t want her to know about this. I don’t want her to worry.”

“I don’t think that’s your call to make, Fox.”

“It’s not,” he says. “But I don’t want to scare her. I’m going to get Dana back. If I don’t, you can explain it to her.”

Mrs. Scully sighs heavily. “I think you should talk to you. Reassure her yourself.”

“Of course.” If he had any idea what to say.

There’s a rustling sound, and then Emily comes on. “Mulder? Where’s Dana?”

Mulder closes his eyes. “She’s... out. Em, listen-”

“Tell her to come home,” Emily says, her voice full of tears. “Tell her to come home, right now.”

“I will, sweetie,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We’ll be home before you know it, okay?”

“I miss you guys.” Emily sniffs loudly. “Why do you have to work so much?”

“We’re gonna come home as soon as we can,” Mulder promises. “And then maybe we can go on that camping trip I mentioned." It’s kind of a shot in the dark in an attempt to calm Emily down, but goddammit, he means it. 

“Okay.” Emily sniffs again. “Here’s Grandma.”

Another rustling sound. “Mrs. Scully...” 

“Go get my daughter, Fox,” she says. She sounds incredibly tired. “Go get my daughter.”

 _I’m coming,_ he thinks as he hangs up the phone.

///

She is drowning and can’t breathe. Her mind is an indiscernible fog. She parts the waters and calls for her daughter, for Mulder, but no one answers.

Mulder shatters the ice surrounding her and pulls her out. He breathes life into her lungs and guides her out of an alien ship. She holds him in the snow at an attempt at survival. Comfort, too, she thinks. She doesn’t even know where they are.

“Sc-” he mutters groggily into the side of her - _his_ \- coat. “Scul-”

“It’s okay, Mulder.” Her hands are undoubtedly as icy as the terrain surrounding them, but she presses her palm to his cheek. “I’m okay. You got me.”

“Em,” he says, and Scully blinks hard at the thought of her daughter. She realizes that she doesn’t know how long she’s been gone, that Emily could be worried and traumatized again… “Em-Em’s okay, I left her at your mother’s. She doesn’t know.”

She breathes a sigh of relief, her breath frozen in the air before her. Alive. “Think she’ll want to hear about the spaceship?” Mulder murmurs groggily.

He’s losing consciousness. She works her frozen fingers through his hair, pressing her face to the top of his head. “Of course,” she whispers. “I can’t wait to tell her.”

///

They stay in the hospital for a few days, recovering from hypothermia. The doctors don’t find any trace of the alien virus, just Scully. Scully, whole. Scully, alive. Her hands are still cold, even hours later when they are both bundled up in blankets, but he holds them anyway.

She calls Maggie after the second day and reassures her that she is fine, they are both fine. She asks her not to tell Emily what happened, obviously approving of Mulder’s decision. “Your mom hates me by now, doesn’t she?” he says after she promises to be home soon and hangs up the phone.

“No, she doesn’t hate you,” Scully says, stepping closer and wrapping a long-sleeved arm around him. “She just worries.” Her face is pressed against his collarbone, and he has no choice but to hug her back, resting his chin on her head. He wonders if this is because of what happened in the hallway. He wonders if she’ll ever bring it up again.

They go straight to Maggie’s after they’re released. Emily meets them at the door, hugging Scully around the waist before jerking back. “You were gone for a week and a half!” she says accusingly. “You said a couple days.”

“I know, sweetie, I’m so sorry about that,” Scully says. She goes down on her knees to look Emily in the eye, taking her hands. “Some things came up that I couldn’t get out of. Mulder either.”

Emily sniffs. “You were working this whole time?”

“Yes. But it’s not going to happen again, okay? Not for this long.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise.” Scully wraps her arms around her daughter. “Remember what I told you? I’m always gonna come back.”

Emily nods, sniffs again into Scully’s t-shirt. They hold each other for a long minute before Scully gets to her feet to hug her mother, who looks worried. Mulder stands awkwardly on the front lawn. Emily turns to look at him.

“Hi, Em,” he says, smiling weakly.

She throws her arms around his knees. “Thanks for making Dana come home,” she says. “Like you said you would.”

He kneels to give her a hug. “Dana’s always gonna come back, and I’m always gonna make sure of it,” he tells her.

“And you’re always gonna come back too, right?”

He’s surprised at the sentiment, surprised that the little girl in his arms cares about him, especially since he’s the one who always takes her mother away. Although he supposes he brings her back, too. “Yes,” he tells her.

///

Mulder hands her the paper as soon as she reaches him. “There’s an interesting work of fiction on page 24. Mysteriously, our names have been omitted. They're burying this thing, Scully. They're just going to dig a new hole and cover it up.”

“I told OPR everything I know,” she says. “What I experienced, the virus, how it's spread by the bees from pollen in transgenic crops.”

Mulder stands and starts off. “You're wasting your time, Scully. They'll never believe you, not unless your story can be programmed, categorized, or easily referenced.”

“Well, then we'll go over their heads,” she says automatically.

“No. No,” he says. “How many times have we been here before, Scully? Right here. So close to the truth and now with what we've seen and what we know to be right back at the beginning with nothing.”

“This is different, Mulder,” she says firmly.

He sighs, closes his eyes. “Scully, I’m not going to ask you to quit again. But I am going to ask you to consider it, please. For you and for Emily. I… care a lot about both of you, and I don’t want to lose you. Especially not to this. I'm not going to watch you die, Scully, because of some hollow personal cause of mine. Go be a doctor. Go be a doctor while you still can.”

“I can't. I won't. Mulder, I'll be a doctor, but my work is here with you now. That virus that I was exposed to, whatever it is, it has a cure. You held it in your hand. How many other lives can we save? And I can’t ask you to look for what happened to Emily without me. It’s not fair to you. Look…” She reaches for his hand, pulling it into hers. “If I quit now, they win.”

He smiles sadly, just a little. “Then I guess I can’t get you to change your mind.”

“It’s going to be okay.” She squeezes his hand. “We’re going to come out on the other side of this someday, and we’re both going to be happy. I promise you.”

He squeezes back. They head away from the reflecting pool, still holding hands. “Hey, Mulder,” Scully says softly. “What would you say to Chinese and a game of Monopoly?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for spoilers for the beginning, triangle, s.r. 189 and the beginning of tithonus. slight spoilers/altered events for drive and how the ghosts stole christmas. it gets slightly angstier in this part (although there’s still plenty of fluffy parts) and there’s some confrontational moments. if my characterization sucks for diana fowley, i apologize. one of my goals was to present her as somewhat sympathetic.  
> i didn’t actually realize that mulder had the cure for emily until i actually rewatched emily, in the middle of this chapter. ugh, that would’ve saved me a lot of time. assume this takes place in an au where mulder never found emily’s cure.  
> the resemblance between the christmas scene here and another emily au i wrote (the long and winding road, which i do consider au from this story) is intentional. i literally stole some of that scene.  
> thanks to @krolikalert for permission to use her comic (http://how-i-met-your-mulder.tumblr.com/post/149770066388/krolikalert-omg-i-just-wanted-to-draw-a-single) as inspiration for the christmas scene!! her art is so amazing and i’m in love with it.

It’s cold in the woods, colder than it really should be in mid-July. Scully buttons a flannel shirt that she found in his suitcase over Emily’s pajamas. The firelight lights up their faces with an orange glow and illuminates Emily’s hair to a color close to her mother’s. (It’s been years since he’s been camping like this [spending horror-filled nights with Scully in the woods doesn’t count] - sometime in 1972, he thinks, him and Samantha on the beach, the ocean at their backs, the moon reflecting off the sand.) Emily’s giggling, and getting bits of melted marshmallow all over her hands. Scully wipes them with wet wipes she’d stowed in her backpack. Mulder smiles at her over the flames. 

Samantha didn’t like ghost stories. (Or stories about anything scary, really - he remembers thinking it was unfair that aliens took her, once he’d figured it out, because she always hated aliens. She’d screamed for about five minutes straight one time when he’d read aloud from  _ War of the Worlds  _ to bug her.) Emily asks for ghost stories with excitement. Mulder remembers that Scully had claimed  _ The Exorcist _ as one of her favorite movies, and wonders if interest in the creepy stuff is a genetic trait. “Hey, Scully, we worked a case with that ghost way back in 93,” he says, piquing Emily’s interest.

“Oh, that was not a ghost.” Scully settles Emily in her lap, smirking over her head. 

“What wasn’t a ghost?” Emily demands. 

Mulder recounts the story of Howard Graves and Lauren Kyte, and by the end of it, he can’t figure out what her stance is on the whole thing. (He knows Scully’s.) Her reaction is limited to a disappointed: “So the ghost didn’t wear a sheet?” 

Mulder laughs. “Nope, no sheet. Pretty  _ boring _ , right?”

“Yeah. You’ll have to tell me a better one tomorrow.” Her eyelids are drooping, and she’s yawning. 

“Okay, time for bed,” Scully says softly. 

“Don’t wanna.” She drags the back of her hand across her eyelids.

“Sorry, kiddo, but you’re practically sleepwalking at this point. Say goodnight to Mulder.”

There’s a perceivable pout on Emily’s face, but she seems to be too sleepy to do much arguing. “Night, Mulder.”

“Night, Em.” 

The two of them vanish into the tent, and Scully exits a few minutes later and rounds the weakening fire to sit next to him. “Out like a light. Nice job tiring her out with the lake.” 

“It’s all in the interest of giving you a break.” He winks.

“It’s such a nice break, too,” Scully says sarcastically, stretching her arms out like a cat. “In the forest. Again.”

“Hey, if you really want a break, I can occupy her tomorrow. You could drive into town, have some down time.”

She shakes her head. “Nice as it sounds, I kind of like spending time with you two. Also, it wouldn't exactly be relaxing. I mean, where could I go besides a store or restaurant?”

Mulder smiles. “Well, what about when we get back to D.C.? I can take her to my place for a while, give you a break.”

She draws her hand up his arm, making him shiver. “Sounds nice.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Her head lolls against his shoulder. “Might have to take you up on that.”

The silence is a deafening echo in his ears. The fire crackles and dies, and Scully breathes like she’s asleep, and Emily’s breathing in the same smooth cadence yards away in the tent. The woods are shadowy and menacing. The fire dies, and it’s just dark, too dark. Mulder yawns, but shakes himself awake. Part of him doesn’t want to sleep and risk it.

“Go to bed, Mulder,” Scully murmurs, touching his wrist with her cool hand. “There’s no monsters in these woods.”

///

“I almost left Gibson behind,” he tells her in the dark of her living room. “Diana wanted me to come with her-” And he can see her small grimace, even in the dark. “-but I couldn't leave him. I couldn't stop thinking about Emily. So I took him to a hospital… but it wasn't enough. They took him back. He was locked in a room with some… thing, and I got caught.”

Her cool hand touches his wrist. “Mulder?”

“Yeah?” 

“You did everything you could.”

_ It doesn't feel like it, _ he thinks. 

Reassignment. No association with the X-Files. Just perfect. 

Diana shows up later, to apologize. “You understand,” she says. “I had to keep up my persona.”

No, he doesn't understand. It's been a long time. “What happened to Gibson?” he snaps.

His doorbell rings. Of course the pizza man would show up now. He fumbles through his wallet, sending some bills to the ground. It's not until he turns with the box in his hands that he sees the photo Diana is holding in her hands. It must've fallen out with the money. “Agent Scully, huh,” she says, holding it out. 

It's the one where Scully's holding Emily in the park. They're both laughing, Scully's nose pressed to Emily’s hair. 

“I didn't know she had a daughter.”  _ Or that you carried a picture of them in your wallet  _ is what she leaves unspoken. (Her dark eyes were once the most familiar thing in the world; now they're utterly unfamiliar.)

“Do you know what happened to Gibson?” Mulder repeats, setting the pizza box down on the table. 

“No. I think he's safe, though.”

“He’s just a kid.”

Diana takes a sharp breath. “I know. I'm sorry, Fox.”

Mulder doesn't really have a reply. He takes the photo from her gently. 

“I'm sorry about everything,” she adds. 

He doesn't exactly have an answer for that one. Everything feels different between them now.

///

Kersh sends them on fertilizer checks. Scully is pissed about leaving Emily. “I told him I didn't want to leave her alone,” she mutters from the driver’s seat of the car. He’d figured better to humor to her while she’s this mad. Also, he’s pretty pissed himself. “If they're giving us all these one-off jobs, can they at least keep them in the general area?” 

They're both extremely bored with the new assignment. Monotony of the worst form. Scully calls Emily at the rest stops, and passes the phone to Mulder after a few minutes. The West Coast is too hot for their blazers. 

After seeing the news report about the woman with the exploding head in Nokes’ house, Scully turns to him in the car and says, “News report seemed like old times, huh? Surprised you didn't want to head to Nevada and check it out.” 

The thought is tempting, but there's a little girl in D.C. waiting for her mother to come home. “Nah, let's finish up and head home,” he says. 

Emily's sick with a cold when they get back, coughing wetly from her cocoon on Mrs. Scully's couch. Mrs. Scully seems insistent that she can take care of Emily, but Scully seems rattled at the sight. Emily hasn’t been sick since her cure. “Take some time off,” Mulder says, brushing her elbow absently with his hand. “I'll cover for you.” 

“I'll call in sick,” she replies. “Easier to avoid Kersh’s bad side.”

The bullpen is a lot lonelier without her. He calls at lunchtime to update her on the background checks while Emily coughs in the background. 

///

When his phone rings at 3 am, the last person he’s expecting to be on the other end is Diana Fowley. “Fox, you need to listen to me. This is important.”

Mulder yawns widely. The only reason he'd picked up is because he'd thought it was Scully. "What is it, Diana? It's late.”

“It's your… partner's little girl.” 

He freezes, suddenly wide awake, the phone too hot and solid in his hands. “What?” he says in a near whisper. 

“They're going to try and take her tonight.” Diana sounds hesitant, like she almost regrets telling him. “I thought you would want to know.”

“How?” Mulder snaps, gripping the phone in his hand. “How do you know?”

“I was informed,” she says. “There’s no time for this. You need to go.”

He's halfway across the room, grisly images flooding his mind, before the click of her hanging up even comes through. 

///

He calls her in the elevator, trying to get his pulse under control. The drive over is a blur, heart thundering rapidly in his ears. “Hey, Scully, it’s me. I’m almost at your apartment.”

“What is it, Mulder?” she mutters groggily. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Diana called. She said someone might go after Emily tonight,” he states bluntly. He doesn’t know how to put it in gentle tones. He thinks, by the tone of her voice, he may have made it in time. She’d tell him, or give him a clue, or _ something  _ if they were in danger. 

“ _ Diana _ , Mulder?” she says in sleepy disbelief, clearly not completely awake. “How do you know you can…” She pauses, and then speaks again, more clearly, and definitely frantic. “Mulder, I think someone’s in the house.”

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he says, slamming a hand into the side of the elevator.  _ Too late, too late, too late, no. _ “Fuck, Scully, hang on. I’m coming.”

There’s a clattering sound on the other end, and he swears again. The elevator opens, and he sprints down the hallway, letting his own phone hit the carpeted floor and grasping for his gun. He can hear Scully shouting. “Federal agent! Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?” The door is wide open, and he runs through it. Living room is empty. “What the hell do you want with my daughter?” Scully shouts again, her voice rising fiercely on a sob. He spots her as he rounds the corner into the hall. She's aiming her gun at a man with a trench coat. The man seems to be unarmed. Mulder looks past them to the open door of Emily's bedroom. She's lying limply in bed, but he can’t tell if she’s sleeping or drugged or… he won’t even consider the alternative. He swallows a lump in his throat, and presses the barrel of his gun to the man’s neck roughly. “Listen up, you bastard, you are going to tell me exactly what you’re doing here and exactly what you’ve done, or I’ll make sure your death is a lot more fucking painful than any death by your Consortium buddies, you understand?”

Scully is backing up, her gun still pointed at the man but her attention turned to the open door.  _ Fuck, no, nothing bad is going to happen to her, it can’t _ . 

The man laughs, his hands in his pockets. “They told me this job would be a handful, but I suppose I underestimated you two.”

“Hands where I can see them!” Mulder snaps, pressing the gun harder against his neck. Scully is in the bedroom at this point, attention shifting from the man to Emily.  “What the hell you doing here?”

“I’m here for the girl.” The man shrugs. “I’m meant to take her back to the labs.”

Scully visibly shudders at his words, setting the gun on the bed. She strokes Emily’s face with her left hand, and runs the right over her exposed arms. “Did you inject her with anything?” she says quietly, eerily calm and steely. “Did you lay a fucking hand on her?” Her voice breaks, hands trembling. 

“Lady, I didn’t even get into her room before you got in here and started waving a gun in my face.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Mulder growls, cocking his gun. 

The man suddenly thrusts an arm back wildly, elbow hitting Mulder square in the stomach. Wind knocked out of him, he stumbles back against the wall, gun tumbling from his hand. “Mulder!” he hears Scully shout somewhere. The man hits him again, this time in the face, and is out of the room before Scully can so much as aim at him. 

Mulder drags himself to his feet, grabbing his gun. “Stay with her,” he shouts, stumbling after the man out into the hallway outside. Nothing - it’s like he’s vanished. 

_ Emily. _ Mulder turns and sprints back to her bedroom. Scully has pulled the still-sleeping Emily into her arms. “Scully,” he says softly, almost not wanting the answer. “Is she…”

“She’s fine,” Scully says, burying her face against Emily’s hair. She laughs bitterly. “She’s still out from the damn cold medicine.”

He steps closer, and presses a finger to Emily’s pulse point. Her heartbeat is strong and steady.

“It’s like you said,” Scully says, nearly sobbing. “She could sleep through a hurricane.” She is rocking Emily back and forth.

He feels like sobbing himself. “Scully.” He sits across from her on the bed, and wraps his arms around them. He doesn’t care this time. 

“Mulder, you’re bleeding,” she says quietly. Her head is nudged up against his chin. Emily is pressed between them awkwardly, but he can feel her heartbeat. 

“I don’t care.” He holds them tighter, as if the man is going to come back and snatch them away. He might, in fact. He very well might. 

“Dana?” mutters a sleepy voice in between them. Emily curls a hand around his coat and pulls gently. “Mulder?” 

They pull back, just enough, but Scully is still holding on to Emily, and Emily keeps a firm grasp on his coat. “What’s going on?” she asks thickly. She sounds congested and tired.  _ Poor kid _ , Mulder thinks affectionately.  

“Nothing, sweetie,” Scully says softly, smoothing sweaty hair back. “Nothing at all.”

“I had a dream that there was yelling.” She turns her face into Scully’s stomach, tugging at his coat again. 

“It was just a dream,” Mulder says, looking to Scully for approval. She nods, blinking away tears. 

“Why are you bleeding?” 

“Ran into a door,” he lies. (It’s the biggest lie in history, but she won’t know that, will she.)

“It hurt?”

“I’m fine.” Mulder swallows the lump in his throat. 

Scully is stroking her hair. “Hey, Emily, honey,” she says softly. “How would you like to go to a sleepover at Mulder’s apartment? He’ll take you over there, and I’ll be over in a few hours.”

She tightens her grip on his coat. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Scully kisses her head. “Okay.”

“Gotta go to the bathroom first.” She loosens her hold and wriggles out from between them. He misses the pressure. 

Scully is reluctant to let her go alone, but she takes a shaky breath and says, “All right. But come right back here, and I’ll get your shoes and coat situated.”

“And Bunny.”

“And Bunny,” she promises, tucking a tangled strand of red-blonde hair behind her ear. 

Emily slips off the bed and pads down the hall quietly, rubbing her eyes and yawning as she goes.

“I’ll need to call the police and file a report, and then I’ll be over to your apartment,” Scully says softly. “Can you take her?”

“Scully, you don’t have to…”

“Someone has to file a report,” she snaps. “And I don’t want her here. I know you’ll protect her, Mulder… please. Please.” 

“Of course,” he says softly. 

“Okay.” She closes her eyes. “Your nose is still bleeding, Mulder.” 

He drags the back of his hand across his face, flinching a little at both the sting and the familiar ailment. “I’ll be okay.” 

Scully blinks at him sleepily. “Thank you for coming,” she whispers. “I don’t know what would’ve…” She crawls forward and wraps both arms around him tightly, presses her face into his shoulder and he realizes she is crying, hot tears soaking into his shirt. He rubs her back, rocking her slightly, and blinks back tears of his own. 

“Ready.” Emily’s in the doorway then, coat draped over her nightgown and shoes on the wrong feet. 

Scully pulls away. “Sweetie, c’mere,” she says, crouching in front of her and helping her switch her shoes and zipping her coat. Mulder grabs the stuffed bunny from the bed. Scully grabs Emily in a fierce hug, still crying. “I’m going to be there before you know it,” she says. Emily nods. He stands there and lets them hug, absorbs the fact that they are okay, they are okay.

When Scully finally lets go, he passes Emily the bunny. She smiles up at him, sniffles as she takes his hand. 

///

Almost five in the morning and he’s still awake, sitting on the couch with his gun still in his hand. He’d put Emily in the bed he’d bought on a whim over the summer. (He’s not completely sure why he bought it, but nights like tonight certainly make it useful.) He'd been a little light on children's books, so he'd just told Scully stories - good, funny stories that don't leave a lump in his throat - until she'd nodded off against his arm. Scully stumbled in a couple hours later, carrying two small bags, and he’d led her to the bedroom. “I didn’t know you had a bed,” she’d muttered, blinking heavily and sleepily as she crawled into the bed beside her daughter. He’d pressed a kiss to her forehead before going out into the living room again.

“Mulder?” says a small voice from the doorway. He turns to see Emily standing there, hair tangled around her face. Her socks are still too big. “Your face is all blue,” she says, pointing.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Uh, yeah, it’s called a bruise.”

“Mm-hmm.” She draws a little closer to the couch. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks. 

Emily shakes her head. “Dana keeps moving around and talking, but she's still asleep, I think, cause she didn't say if she was awake when I asked.”

“What’s she saying instead?”

“Your name, my name. Stuff.” She shrugs. “Can I get up?”

Mulder’s startled by the request. “Sure.”

She climbs up into his lap, knees digging into his ribs, head resting on the curve of his arm. He shoves the gun down in the cushions of the couch where she can’t see it. Emily coughs, and makes a face. “I hate being sick,” she says, sniffing loudly.

“It sucks,” he agrees. He probably should go out and buy a box of Kleenex. He rubs Emily's back a little. 

“I used to watch movies with Mommy when I got sick,” Emily mutters. “Can we watch a movie?”

Which is how they end up watching  _ A New Hope _ , because it's the only remotely kid friendly thing he has in his apartment. She's asleep before the droids make it to Luke's farm. Scully staggers out of the bedroom right around the cantina scene, shoulders slumping in relief when she sees them on the couch. She sits next to them, hand going to Emily's back and head slumping against Mulder’s shoulder. “You're going to have to get some better kid movies, you know,” she whispers.

He presses a kiss to Scully's forehead. “I know.”

“Shut up, Han Solo.” She screws  her eyes shut. He's the only one awake before he knows it, as the starry space sky is lit up with explosions. He falls asleep himself, head lolling against Scully's, before Luke even makes it to Leia’s cell. 

///

Emily's not sure who she is at this point. She used to be Emily Sim, but now she's Emily Scully. She told her teacher she didn't know which one to be, once, and her teacher had suggested they just call her Emily S. until she figured it out.

It's funny, because Dana is Dana to everyone else but Scully to Mulder, and Mulder is just Mulder (Dana had explained once that it was his last name, but Emily doesn't know his first one), and she is just Emily. 

“How come Mulder calls you Scully?” she'd asked once, licking a chocolate milk mustache off of her lips as she clutched the glass in both hands. 

“Because…” Dana had leaned against the counter, tipped her head back like she was thinking. “That's just what we do. We call each other by our last names, so to him, I'm Scully.”

“Hmm.” Emily shoved against the cabinet with her toes. “I wanna be Scully, too, then.”

Dana had looked startled, then laughed. “I don't know. Don't you think that'd be a little confusing?”

She shrugged. “Dunno. You're Dana sometimes and Scully sometimes. I can be Emily sometimes and Scully sometimes.”

“Yeah, but…” Dana paused as she took the empty glass from Emily's hands and put it in the sink. “Me being Scully with Mulder is like a best friend thing. You know how sometimes best friends have stuff just for them? Well, Mulder wants everyone to call him Mulder, but him calling me Scully is like our special thing.”

“Oh,” Emily said, a little disappointed. 

Dana knelt in front of her. “But you know what, we're going to have plenty of our own special things, okay? And in the meantime, you can be just Emily, because it's a very pretty name.” Emily had giggled, and after that, she'd felt a little better.

When she thought about it, though, she thought their special thing was just being them, Mulder and Dana/Scully and Emily. The closest thing she’s felt to a family since her parents were gone. She knows that Dana is her family, but sometimes when the three of them do things, she tends to close her eyes and pretend that Mulder is, too. 

When they’re staying at Mulder’s apartment, it’s almost like they really are a family, except Dana and Emily sleep in the bed, and he sleeps out on the couch. Their boss comes over to the house and they have a “grown-up talk” in the living room while Emily plays in the bedroom. (She’s supposed to call him Mr. Skinner, but Mulder calls him just Skinner, so when he leaves, she imitates his tone when she asks, “How was talking to Skinner?” Mulder laughs, and Dana smiles all crooked - like she thinks it’s funny but doesn’t want to laugh - and tells her to call him Mr. Skinner, it's polite, don't get her into a bad habit, Mulder.)

It’s weird, because she stays home from preschool even when she gets better, and Dana and Mulder stay home from work. Mulder makes lopsided, lumpy pancakes with honey instead of syrup (because he doesn’t have any syrup), and he teaches her board games on his coffee table. Both of them have their guns around most of the time. Emily isn’t sure how she feels about that.

Dana sleeps a lot, and Emily plays with Mulder a lot. She falls asleep on the couch or the rug, carpet stinging her cheek, and Mulder always carries her to bed.

“What's your first name?” she asks Mulder one day, wrinkling her nose at his chocolate milk attempt. He hadn't had any syrup, so he'd just dumped a pack of hot chocolate powder into the milk, and it tastes weird, full of crumbly brown chunks.

“Your mom hasn't told you?”

“Uh-uh, she just said you like to be called Mulder.”

Mulder smiles. “You gotta promise not to laugh,” he says seriously. 

“Okaaaay,” Emily says. She doesn't know why she'd be laughing. 

“Promise?”

“Uh huh.”

He sighs and rolls his eyes dramatically before grinning at her. “It's Fox.”

She can't hold back the giggle. “Hey, you promised!” Mulder protests, tickling her side.

She giggles harder. “Fox? Really?”

“Yep. See why I go by Mulder?”

“I  _ like  _ it!”

He makes a face. 

She imitates his earlier sigh. “Fine, I won’t call you that.” _ A lot _ , she adds silently.

“Thanks, kiddo.” He taps her knee. 

“You’re welcome. Fox.” Emily laughs again at the look on his face, and takes another sip of the chocolate milk. Still gross.  

///

Emily’s leaning over the arm of the couch and studying his fish tank with a fierce intensity. “How many are there?”

“Um, five,” Mulder says. “I think.” He gets the award for Worst Pet Owner - on top of this, he caused Scully’s dog to get eaten by an alligator.

Emily giggles, shakes her bangs out of her eyes. That blue headband she has is probably somewhere - they can never find anything in his apartment. “Do they have names?”

He shrugs. “Never got around to it.”

Her eyes are bright with excitement. “Can I name them?”

“Sure.”

“And you’ll call them that?”

“If you want me to,” he says seriously. 

She bounces a little with excitement, and goes back to studying the tank. 

The door swings open, and Mulder immediately whirls around, hand going for his holster, but it's only Scully. She looks tired. “No evidence or anything,” she mutters. “Kersh wants the case to be closed. Skinner says he's done everything he can. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, considering what happened with Melissa.”

“Scully, it'll be okay,” he says quietly. “We'll protect Emily.”

“But what can we do during the day?” She rubs her temple, eyes closed. “Kersh isn't going to give us any more time off. I'm not putting my mother in danger, and it's not unlikely that they'd be able to pull off and cover up an abduction from her preschool.”

Mulder winces and looks over at Emily. She's seemingly oblivious to the conversation, leaning over the couch arm and poking at the tank. “I might have an idea,” he offers. 

///

Scully never actually pictured the Gunmen as babysitters but it actually doesn’t seem crazy now. Byers is engaging in a conversation with her on their dusty orange couch. “Kid should be safe here,” Frohike assures her. “Langly can up security. Nothing will get past us, Agent Scully.”

Scully doesn't have much faith in half of his confidence, but Mulder’s right, this is the safest possible place for her. “Thank you, guys,” she says, watching Emily with Byers. She gets nervous now, whenever Emily’s not in her immediate line of sight. “I can pay you…”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No tests or observations,” Mulder says, more sternly than she’s ever heard him outside of cases. “She’s a little girl, not an experiment.”

“What do you take me for, Mulder?” Frohike sounds genuinely hurt. “We can set her up with some stuff, take shifts. Nothing outside of an ordinary day care.”

“I trust you guys,” Scully says. “Thank you so much. I don’t know how to repay you.”

Emily seems to like the idea of going there every day. She chatters excitedly about the array of computers and other technologies as they head to Emily's self-proclaimed favorite restaurant. Scully holds her daughter's hand, and pretends not to notice when Mulder picks a table away from the windows.

///

They shows up at her apartment unannounced with their guns holstered. Before, he wouldn’t have thought they’d ever needed it. Now, he’s not so sure. 

“Fox,” Diana says when he opens the door. “It’s good to see you.”

“Oh, cut the shit, Diana,” Mulder snaps. “You know something about what happened to Emily. You fucking knew before it happened.”

“I’m not going to play around with this,” Scully adds. She nudges the butt of her gun with her thumb. “Not with my daughter’s life.” 

Diana looks between them wearily. “You might as well come in,” she says finally. “I’ll tell you everything I know.” 

She sits in a chair in the living room. Scully stands by the door, and Mulder stands beside her. 

“Emily’s an experiment,” Diana says plainly. “She always has been. She was placed with an adoptive family to see how she would respond to the tests if she lived in a nurturing environment, as opposed to the experiments who live in the labs. They deliberately picked the Sims because they didn’t have family who could claim the child if anything were to happen to them.”

“Disposable,” Scully spits out. “And they were disposed when Roberta Sim wanted to remove Emily from the trial treatment.”

Diana studies her nails, looking uncomfortable. “Yes. Mr. Sim didn’t see anything wrong with the treatments, but they killed him to prevent him from getting suspicious. They planned to absorb Emily into the system, take her to a ‘live-in facility’ when she got sick enough and resume the experiments.” Scully is pale, looks like she’s going to be sick, and Mulder isn’t far off himself. “What they weren’t counting on was you, Agent Scully.”

He clenches his hand into a fist.

“They didn't expect you to ever find her. They couldn’t kill you…” She clears her throat, pulls at her thumbnail. “Because of your, um, attachment to Fox. They didn’t want to risk upsetting the balance, making him get close again. They made sure your application was denied, but when it looked like you might have a chance, they needed to make her sicker. They planned to give her a disease that would make her appear dead, and then steal the body so they could resume the experiments.”

Scully has her free hand over her mouth, her eyes wet and wide. Mulder still feels the nausea building up beneath his ribs.  

“It was suggested by someone to cure the girl and leave Agent Scully be. They thought you would be more of an asset on our side, and you could be bribed, the way they attempted to do with the clone of your sister last May. The idea was shot down.”

“Did you cure her?” It sounds like Scully is talking through broken glass.

“No. I wasn't involved in the decision making - I wasn't aware of any of this until I returned from Europe - and I wouldn't have thought that it would work in the first place. I wasn’t aware of the… extent of Fox’s feelings for you at the time.” 

He knows then that they know, they must know, and he can’t help but feel disgusted at the fact that they know that he is in love with Scully. That Scully is what can be used to get him to do what they want.

“Who did?” Scully’s voice is rising. 

“I don’t know. They’re upset, but they don’t know who it was. You can be assured, though, that the cure won’t hurt her. It’s designed to do the exact opposite. She’ll live a normal life from here on out as long as they don’t get their hands on her again.” 

“Why?” Mulder snaps. “Why did you warn me?”

She won’t look at him. “I care about you, Fox…”

“Bullshit. If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have been working with the bastards who took my sister!” He has to restrain himself from punching the wall or kicking the table. “You were a goddamn spy all along! You work with people who medically rape women and experiment on children!”

Scully and Diana tense simultaneously, but he doesn’t care. He keeps going, barreling forward like a freight train. “Did you know about Scully? Did you know about what they did to her?”

“I didn’t know what she meant to you…” Diana starts.

He turns and shoves the door open, letting it hit the hall wall with a bang.  He's halfway down the hallway without looking back before he knows it. His fist is slamming into the plaster before he can process what's happening.

Scully is past him, heading for the stairwell without a word. He doesn't follow her. He punches the wall again, and leans his head against it with defeat.

Behind him, the door closes in resignation. 

///

“Are we not going to Mulder’s apartment?” Emily had asked, and Scully hadn’t know how to answer. They’d gone home and she’d double-bolted the door, let Emily watch TV and taken a shower with the hot water turned all the way up.

She still hasn’t heard from Mulder.

She’s not mad at him, not exactly. She’s just tired, very tired. She wants her daughter to be safe. Maybe it was naive to think Emily wouldn’t have to live in fear, but she’d hoped she wouldn’t. But no, every goddamn monster in the galaxy has a vendetta against her, and it seems like a never ending chain of fear and weariness. 

Maybe she is a little mad at Mulder, although she has no right to be. He trusted Fowley (probably loved her), he’s probably feeling more betrayed than ever. It's not fair, but he's the connection here.

The voice that blames Mulder is enough to make her retreat further into her head. She lets Emily sleep in her bed that night.

///

Emily asks about Mulder approximately four times over the next four days. Scully misses him, too. He’s become essential in the routine of their life. He hadn’t shown up to work that day. Despite echoes of their conversation with Diana still playing in her head, she calls him as soon as they get home. “Tell him I said hi,” Emily says, jumping up next to her on the couch and wriggling impatiently. 

“Mulder, it’s me,” she says as soon as he says hello. “Just a sec.” She tips the speaker of the phone away from her mouth, and says, “Em, sweetie, could you go back to your room for a little bit while I talk to Mulder?”

She bounces a little. “You’ll tell him I said hi?”

“Yes.”

Her sneakers hit the floor, and she takes off running. Scully moves the speaker back towards her mouth. “Sorry about that. Em says hi.”

“Scully, I’m sorry,” he says on the other end. 

She sighs. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Mulder. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Apparently, it is,” he says, his voice cracking. “Apparently, I’m the only goddamn reason she’s alive.” 

“Would you prefer the alternate?” she snaps. “Emily is alive. What happened happened, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m not grateful for what happened to me, not by a long shot, but I am more grateful than you know for my daughter, and I don’t blame you for any of it, Mulder.”

He doesn’t reply. 

“Listen,” she says, trying to sound more comforting. “I understand why you’re upset, Mulder. I’m upset, too, and I didn’t even have a personal attachment to Diana. But don’t blame yourself. Please. You mean too much to me and Emily for that.”

“This whole time,” he murmurs. “I can’t believe, this whole time…”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

They don’t say anything for a long minute, their breaths providing a steady rhythm in the speakers. “Scully, can I…” Mulder finally starts. “I don’t want you two to be alone.”

“Please. Please come.”

///

It's October. No one’s attempted to take Emily since that night, but Scully remains on edge. They've stuck to Mulder mainly sleeping on their couch, but they'll occasionally stay at Mulder’s, which Emily loves. The amount of kid's movies at his apartment has increased. Scully pretends she doesn't notice.

She has no remote idea of how to handle his birthday. Most of the time around birthdays, they're either on a case or incapacitated or dying. Last year, she showed up at his apartment with a Twinkie as a joke. In the end, she keeps it to a simple takeout at his place. Emily makes an elaborate card with her markers. He looks happier than he has on any birthday in the time she’s known him. 

Mulder gets excited for Halloween like a little kid - which is probably hindered by the  _ actual little kid _ who gets just as excited. Most of her costume suggestions bring up bad ideas. Scully finally suggests a cat, which Emily loves. “We did have a case about that, you know,” Mulder mutters in her ear. 

“Doesn't count. That case was increasingly ridiculous.” She smiles, though. 

Mulder and Emily carve pumpkins at his kitchen table, goo slopped on the table in mounds. He sets them in the window where he used to tape the X. He takes her trick-or-treating in her apartment complex, and stashes away the mini-Snickers for Scully. 

///

“Dana!” Emily chirps happily from her spot on the floor. “Mulder says you saved the world.”

_ Saved his ass is more like it, _ she thinks, somewhat uncharitably. She’s been pretty uncharitable to Mulder in her head ever since his confession from the hospital bed. And in the _ he-was-on-drugs-and-didn’t-mean-it _ type of denial. 

She settles for a “Mulder’s crazy.”

Emily giggles. “Well, yeah.”

“Hey!” Mulder says, mock-offended. He sounds normal, but he won't meet her eyes when she tries to. Maybe she shouldn't have used the c-word. Maybe she should have said she loved him, too, she's loved him for years now.

“But you could save the world, Dana,” Emily informs her, wrapping her arms around Scully's waist. “You could.”

Mulder finally looks at her, his eyes wide and dark. “You could,” he agrees. 

She should've just said it and been done with it. The little voice of doubt that's saying he didn't mean it, it was the drugs, is outweighed by the voice that's saying he did. And he loves Emily - she can see it in his face every time he looks at her. She should just say it. Rip off the fucking Band-Aid. 

“ _ How _ did Dana save the world?” Emily wants to know, pulling away and running back to Mulder on the couch. Scully buries her nose in paperwork at the table and pretends not to listen. (Kersh has been burying her in it, especially since she ditched work to go save Mulder’s ass and apparently the world, and she’s trying to find a elementary school for Emily for next fall.) 

“Well,” Mulder starts, in his best storytelling voice. “I went to the Bermuda Triangle to look for a ghost ship called the  _ Queen Anne _ .” 

“Like with ghosts on it?”

“Could be.” Mulder shrugs. “And I found it. Except on the ship, it was 1939, a long time ago. And Dana was on the ship, except she didn’t know who I was.”

“Really?” Emily shoots Scully a scolding look that she pretends not to notice over the scrawling of her pen on the paper. She’s paying attention to the story despite herself. She’ll never admit it, but she misses the X Files, the zany unusualness of the cases and Mulder telling her scary stories under the blue light of his slides.

“Really. But she was working against the bad guys who were on the ship. And they were really, really bad guys, and they wanted to take the ship to the place they came from, so they could use a scientist on the ship to do bad things. And it was Dana’s job to stop them.”

“And did she?” Emily squirms anxiously. 

Mulder smiles warmly in her direction; she can almost feel the heat on the back of her neck. “She did. I took her out to the rail and told her to turn the ship around. And the other Dana said  _ okay  _ all huffy, like she does when she thinks you’re ridiculous but she’s gonna do it anyway.” Scully smiles and ducks her head to hide it.  _ He’s completely ridiculous _ . “And then I, um.” He stops, suddenly sounding embarrassed. “Um. Uh, I jumped overboard, and I guess I made it back because I woke up with your mom leaning over me.”  _ And told her I loved her, _ she fills in for him.  _ No big deal.  _

“So how did she save the world?” Emily sounds disappointed, like she was expecting something more exciting. “If she just turned a ship around?”

“Because if she hadn’t, then our entire world would’ve changed. You and I wouldn’t be sitting here right now, and Dana wouldn’t be over there pretending to ignore us.”

“I am ignoring you.”

“That is not ignoring, Scully.”

Emily giggles with delight. She seems to think it's hilarious when they verbally spar. 

“So, what do you think?” Mulder asks. 

“Okay.” Her little voice is slightly disappointed. 

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Just okay.” 

“Would it help if I told you she also saved me from the bad guys?” 

“Yeah!”

_ I saved him from drowning, _ Scully thinks. _ Left my daughter alone with my mother again to hunt down his waterlogged ass when I didn’t even know he was in trouble And I saved his life. _ She hears his  _ I love you _ again, hears her reply. 

“Where’d you get that bruise?”

“Oh, um. Um. You know. It wasn’t exactly an… easy trip.” Mulder still sounds embarrassed. She wonders briefly why.

///

Emily blows out the candles, sending smoke filtering around the room. Mrs. Scully avoids meeting Mulder’s eyes over the candles. Scully avoids meeting either of their eyes, pressing a kiss to her daughter's hairline. Mulder feels extremely awkward, but it helps when Emily leans her head against his forearm and asks if he liked chocolate or vanilla better cause this cake has both, although Dana didn't make it, Grandma bought it at the store. “Chocolate,” he says,  tugging a strand of her hair. 

Mrs. Scully doesn’t seem to know how to act around him. She’s nice, like she’s always nice. She holds Emily on her lap, and Emily giggles every time she calls him Fox. 

He’s bought her a stack of books, ones Scully mentioned her enjoying from the library or that he remembers Samantha having. Mrs. Scully flips through the stack while Emily’s engrossed in a copy of  _ Clifford _ . “Oh,  _ Goodnight Moon _ ,” she says. “That was Dana’s favorite when she was about your age, Emily.”

“ _ Really _ ?” Emily looks like she can't imagine Scully ever being that age.

Scully smiles fondly. “Really. I used to leave my bedroom window open so I could say goodnight to my dad's ship at the end of the book.”

Mulder smiles, too, at the picture of a young Scully. In his head, she looks like Emily, despite Scully saying that Emily resembles a younger version of Melissa. He can see a lot of the Scullys in her small face. 

By the end of the night, there’s a stain of chocolate that will probably never come out, and Emily’s asleep in her grandmother’s lap after several requested rounds of  _ Goodnight, Moon _ . “I should head out, it’s late,” Mrs. Scully says, smoothing Emily’s hair. 

Scully and Mulder are wrestling with clumps of wrapping paper and Glad bags. “Thanks so much for everything, Mom,” Scully says, shoving a box down into the bag. 

“It was my pleasure, Dana.” She attempts to move out from under Emily without waking her.

“Here, I’ve got her,” Mulder offers, scooping her up like he has a thousand times before. Mrs. Scully smiles broadly at him, and some of the tension in his stomach eases as he smiles back.

///

“Hey, how's Thanksgiving in San Diego?”

“Fun!” Emily says brightly. “I got to see my friends. Also, Dana took me to the beach.”

“Sounds fun,” Mulder agrees. 

“Wish you'd come,” she pouts on the other end. 

“Sorry, kiddo. I didn't want to intrude on your family time.”  _ And also your Uncle Bill hates me.  _ “And Thanksgiving isn't really my holiday.” 

“Why not?”

“I don't like turkey,” he lies, sensing that  _ because my sister got abducted just a few days after Thanksgiving in 1973  _ wouldn't be an appropriate answer. That’s the last time he’s really observed the holiday, making faces at his sister over the turkey to ease the tension taut between his parents. Scully had invited him to come to San Diego, and besides the obvious fact that Bill hates him and he still can't get a read on Mrs. Scully's feelings, he'd told her about the coinciding dates. She'd gotten a look on her face like she understood immediately, and reached out and squeezed his shoulder. 

Emily giggles. “I think Dana misses you,” she whispers loudly. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. She's making a face at me right now. Dana, do you miss Mulder?” A crackle, and then she says, “Dana says of course, you're an idiot if you think she doesn't.”

Mulder smiles. “I miss her, too.”

“And me?” Emily's voice rises up on a whine. 

“Of course I do, kiddo! It's pretty boring around here with just me and… what are the fish’s names again?”

Emily laughs. “Said you'd remember,” she accuses.

“I do,” he reassures. “Big Bird is chasing Scooby Doo around the tank right now.”

Emily laughs again. “Silly fish. Okay, Dana wants to talk to you.”

“Okay,” he agrees. “Go ahead and put her on.”

The phone clatters for a second before Scully’s voice comes through. “Hey, Mulder,” she says. “How’s DC?”

“Cold as balls.” _ And lonely _ , he resists the urge to add. “I’ve been told that San Diego is fun.”

“It is, it’s nice to see Bill and Tara and Matthew again.” She lowers her voice. “Nothing suspicious here.”

He breaths a sigh of relief.

“I went to scout out the Sims’ old house. It’s already been sold,” she continues. “None of the parents of Emily’s old friends have seen anything strange, and neither has Bill.”

“Are you sure he’s not just dismissing it as nothing?” 

“I didn’t mention anything about Emily, I just asked if he’d been followed, or seen anyone around the house. He’s in the military, so I’m sure he would’ve noticed.” Scully sighs. “At least I know they’re safe.” 

(Part of him wants to comment on the fact that she and Emily aren’t safe yet, but he doesn’t bother.)

“We’re flying back in a few days,” she adds. 

“Do you want me to pick you up from the airport?” he offers immediately. 

“Sure, if you’re not too busy.”

“Scully?”

“Yes?” 

“I’m not too busy.” 

///

There are no family traditions when you’ve only been a family for a few months. Their Christmas Eve is looking free and clear. Scully’s already ruled out midnight mass, because she doubts Emily will be able to make it that long, and she’s already geared up for Santa despite the lack of a tree (at Emily’s request, with a haunted look in her eyes as they passed a Christmas tree lot on their way home one night, assumedly because of her parents). They don’t have to go to her mother’s until the next morning. “What do you want to do?” she asks Emily. “We could do whatever we want.” Emily shrugs, flipping through a copy of  _ How The Grinch Stole Christmas _ , her requested bedtime book every night through December. “We could watch a movie,” Scully offers, eyes going to her tape of  _ It’s A Wonderful Life. _ She’d always watched in on Christmas Eve throughout her childhood while they waited for midnight mass. Charlie and Bill had always found it boring. Melissa had loved it, though, memorized all the lines. When they’d been much younger, she’d told Scully that the story about bells and angel’s wings was true. It'd been a lot easier to believe things as an eight-year-old, the Christmas lights reflected in her sister’s eyes. 

Emily shrugs again. “Can Mulder come over?” 

She can’t stop the smile from spreading across her face. “Do you want him to come over?”

“Uh huh. For all Christmas.”

Scully kneels on the ground beside her daughter. “What do you think, do you want to go ask him?”

An excited grin spreads across Emily’s face as well. “Yeah!” She bounces a little with excitement.

They take a cab over, and knock on the door instead of using her key. When Mulder opens the door, he looks a little surprised to see them. “Hey there,” he says uncertainly. 

Scully smiles at him before turning to Emily. “Do you want to ask him what you asked me?” she asks quietly.

Emily grins shyly but widely. “Do you want to come back with us for Christmas?”

Mulder grins back, like he can’t help it. He still looks surprised. “Sure!” he says quickly. “If, uh, if you want me to.”

“I want you to.” Emily reaches up and grabs his thumb, starts tugging at it. 

He adjusts his hand so that he’s holding hers, and allows her to pull him into the hallway. “You okay with this, Scully?” he asks softly.

_ I wouldn’t have it any other way. I want you to be part of our family. I love you.  _ “Of course,” she finally settles on. “Of course I am.”

///

It’s snowing lightly outside by the time the movie is finished. Emily didn’t like it and was very vocal about it, is asleep curled into a ball on the couch, knees drawn up under the yellow material of her nightgown and her head resting on Mulder’s knee. Scully hopes her appreciation for the movie will grow as she gets older. Mulder reaches for the remote as the credits play. 

“I can relate to George Bailey,” she says quietly. 

Mulder turns to her, startled. “Do you have a crazy uncle I don’t know about, Scully?” 

She laughs. “No, it’s not that. I’ve just… considered, before, what my life would be like if I hadn’t made certain choices.”

“If you hadn’t met me,” he says quietly. 

Her head snaps up. “Mulder, no,” she says. 

“You wouldn’t have been taken,” he says. “You wouldn’t have gotten sick.”

“And I wouldn’t have Emily and I wouldn’t have you.”  _ Don’t you dare think you’re not important to me, Mulder. Don't you dare. _

He looks down at Emily. She snuffles a little in her sleep, and he unconsciously lifts a hand to her head. Scully watches them. “I was wrong, actually,” she says softly. “You’re George Bailey, always ready to sacrifice yourself for the greater good. But I’m telling you, Mulder - I’m so grateful for everything that’s happened.” 

Mulder smiles faintly, his hand still hovering over Emily’s head. “Does that make you Mary or the angel, Scully?”

“Take your pick.” She smiles, drawing a hand up his arm. “It’s late. I should get Emily to bed.”

“So Santa can come?” Mulder reaches for his car keys on the coffee table. 

Scully snatches them up before he can get to them. “Exactly,” she says. 

“You stealing my car keys, Scully?”

“You can’t possibly drive home in the snow, Mulder. And my daughter asked you to stay for Christmas.” She drops the keys on the table, and goes to scoop up Emily. “Make yourself comfortable.” 

Emily doesn’t wake up on the way to her room. Scully tucks the comforter around her, flips on the nightlight, smooths her hair away from her face and whispers, “Merry Christmas, honey,” as she leans over to kiss her goodnight. A year ago, she realizes, she never would’ve pictured herself here. Adopting Emily was just a pipe dream then, and one that didn’t seem likely. And yet. And yet, here they are. 

Mulder’s not in her bedroom, like she'd hoped, but in his usual spot on the couch. She stands in the doorway to the living room, and he blinks up at her sleepily. “Hey, Scully, did I tell you about this house that is haunted only on Christmas Eve?”

She sits so that they are just barely touching. “Tell me.”

///

Since there’s no tree, Scully stacks the presents in a corner of the room. Mulder sneaks out to go to his place to get their presents. Emily gets up at six am promptly, and is a little more than delighted by the paraphernalia in the corner. Mulder hands Scully's present to her subtly. She smirks and passes him one back. 

“A fish!” Emily holds up the plastic bag triumphantly. 

“Yeah, I know how much you liked mine,” Mulder says with a smile. “I've got a bowl and things out in the car.”

“Thanks, Mulder!” She sets the bag down on the coffee table and hugs him around the knee. “Oh, yeah, I have presents for you guys!” She turns and sprints off to her bedroom, socks slipping on the floor.

“I hope that's okay,” Mulder says quietly to Scully. 

She works at a piece of Scotch tape with her fingernail, smirking. “As long as you don't get any more pets, we're fine.”

“Damn, there goes my puppy idea.” He pretends to pout.

“Shh, don't give her any ideas.” Scully waves her hands as if she's trying to erase the words. But she is smiling. 

Emily comes running back in with two pieces of paper in her hands. She shoves one at Mulder first, saying, “I drew this for you” proudly. 

Something swells inside him as he takes the paper from her. It depicts a brown bear-like creature, but the caption reads  _ Bigfoot _ in messy child letters. He plays along though. “It’s a beautiful bear!”

She giggles. “No, it’s your Bigfoot, see? The one that was a bear?” He doesn’t quite follow the logic, but oh well. “Dana helped me with the words underneath. The, uh, caption. That's what she said it was called.”

“It’s beautiful, Em, thank you. I’m going to tack it up on my desk.” He reaches over and tousles her hair affectionately.

She smiles angelically and turns to Scully. “Here you go, Dana. Grandma helped me with the spelling.”

“Thank you, sweetie.” Scully kisses her head, and turns her attention to the picture. Her eyes widen, and she blinks rapidly. Mulder watches them. Emily has something of a nervous look on her face, bouncing on her feet.

When Scully speaks again, her voice is choked. “It’s beautiful.” She pulls Emily onto her lap, setting the picture down on the coffee table. As they embrace, Mulder cranes his neck to see the picture, and has to blink back tears himself.

It’s a portrait of the three of them. She’s written  _ My Family _ as a caption.

///

Emily turns her nose up at the black and white version of  _ A Christmas Carol  _ and throws herself into her stack of new books. Scully boxes up some orange rolls to take to her mother’s. “You’re sure you won’t come with us?” she asks as she fits the blue plastic lid on the box. It immediately fogs with the heat. 

“I don’t think it’d be a good idea. You know. I don’t want to intrude.” Emily pouts up at him, and tugs at his pants leg. He shoots a pout down back down at her, and then grins. 

“You wouldn’t be intruding,” Scully says firmly. He raises his eyebrows. She sighs. “All right. But you’re welcome to stay here until we get back.” 

“Stay,” Emily says pleadingly, drawing out the word. 

Well, it’s not like he has anything else to do. “I think that can be arranged.” He reaches down and tousles Emily’s hair. 

Before they leave, Emily runs up and gives him a hug. Surprising, but not new. But then she kisses him on the cheek. That’s new. “Merry Christmas, Mulder,” she says with a wide smile. 

He leans forward and kisses her on the forehead. “Merry  Christmas, Em.” He smiles at Scully, who’s watching the scene quietly. “Merry Christmas, Scully.”

She kisses his hair as they leave the apartment. It’s strangely intimate, and the heat of it buzzes through him like lightning. He has sandwiches and what is hopefully more acceptable Christmas movies waiting when they get home. Emily’s present for Scully is tacked up on the wall. The fish swims around in its bowl.

///

“Emily's in her room right now,” she explains at the door. “She's upset because she wasn't allowed to stay up til midnight and threw a little tantrum, so she's having a timeout.”

“Oh.” Mulder looks like he's not sure exactly what to say, one hand halfway in his pocket. 

“It may sound strange, but I'm glad she's acted up,” she adds, pulling him through the door. “I think she's getting used to being here, getting towards being a normal kid.”  _ And me towards being a normal mother.  _

“I agree.” Mulder squeezes her hand. “She's a good kid, Scully. You don't have much to worry about.”

“No, if temper tantrums about not getting to stay up are the worst I have ahead, then it should be a mild enough fourteen years,” Scully agrees. 

They end up watching movies on the couch as the last minutes of 1998 wind down. Scully breaks out champagne around ten, declaring that she won't make it until midnight. In reality, it's Mulder who doesn't make it, sleeping for almost an hour on her shoulder, his breath hot against her neck. She wakes him minutes away from midnight, whispering, “Hey, Mulder, you're going to miss the new year.”

“Mmm, did I fall asleep? Damn it; you finally beat me.”

Scully smiles in reference to an old game from stakeouts to see who could stay awake the longest. “I'm gonna go get Emily up; I don't want her to miss this.” 

“Softie,” Mulder calls after her in a groggy voice. 

Emily is even groggier, if that's possible, and remains half asleep with her head lolling against Scully's neck. Scully avoids pointing out the obvious, sensing it wouldn't be wise. She stands in front of the TV with Emily, and Mulder sits behind them on the couch, holding her hand as the clock counts down.  _ Threetwoone _ , it's 1999, a new year with her new family, and she thinks she wants to kiss Mulder. Just turn and kiss him with their daughter's snuffly breathing between them, in hopes he'd kiss her back and blink up at her with sleepy eyes. Their daughter. Theirs. That's the way she wants it to be, and it would be natural, perfect, she can see that Mulder loves her baby with everything in him. She turns.

“Dana, bed,” Emily mutters into her t-shirt, and Scully smiles apologetically at Mulder as if he could read her mind and carries her down the hall and tucks her into bed. Mulder is standing in the living room when she gets back. He steps towards her, and for a second, she thinks he might kiss her. She won't resent him for the stolen opportunity.

Instead, he presses his mouth to her forehead with with a stunning but familiar intimacy. “Happy New Year, Scully,” he mutters.

She presses her face to his shoulder, holding him closer. “Happy New Year, Mulder.”  _ I love you,  _ she thinks fiercely, but the words get caught in her throat. 

///

**_1999_ **

“How’s Skinner?” Emily asks, almost defiantly.

“Mr. Skinner,” Scully corrects automatically, and Emily smirks up at her. “Doing better,” she adds. “It would be nice if you would make him a card.” Partially out of politeness, partially to see her boss’s face when she hands it to him.

“What would I say?”

“Get well soon, you’ll be in my prayers. Stuff like that.” Scully turns the key in the lock, and pushes the door open. “It’s nice to know people care.”

“Hmm.” Emily rushes into the room, peeling off her mittens. “Can Mulder come over tonight?”

“Sure, I think he was going to stop by the hospital and then come by. Coat rack, remember.” 

Emily huffs a little as she drapes her coat over the hook. It promptly flutters to the ground. “You never make me make Mulder a card when he’s sick.”

She’s never even thought about it. Mulder being hurt is not exactly out of the ordinary. “Well… I think you make people cards to show them that you care. Mulder knows that we care, because we show him in a different way.” 

“Oh.” Emily hooks the coat again, and goes to work peeling her snow-slick sneakers off. “Okay.” 

Scully opens the fridge and starts looking through for something for dinner. “Dana?” Emily asks over the rip of Velcro.

“Hmm?”

“If you’re my mom, does that make Mulder my dad?”

She startles a little, knocking the ketchup over. Her heart speeds up at the words. “If you want him to be,” she says. “Then, yes, he is.” 

“Do  _ you _ want him to be?”

Scully smiles in spite of myself. “Let’s just say he’s at the top of the list.”

“There’s a list? Who’s on it?” 

“No one.”

“Then why did you say there was…”

“It’s an expression, Em.” She straightens the condiments, and pulls a lasagna out of the freezer. “Yes, I want him to be.” She turns around to a sly smile, and gives her a stern look. “Why don’t we keep my half of the conversation between us, though?”

Emily pouts a little, clambering up to sit at the kitchen table. “Why, though? Don’t you want him to know?” 

Scully shrugs. “I think he knows, honey.” 

“Huh.” She rests her small chin on her arms. “You guys are weird.”

“You’re not the first to say so.”

She swings her legs. “So I can tell him about me, but not you?”

“Right.” Scully punches buttons on the oven. “I want to be the one to tell about me, okay? You can tell about you, though, if you want.”

Emily shrugs. “I think you’re right, Dana. I think he does know.”

“I hope so,” she mutters, mostly to herself.

///

She asks Mulder to watch Emily when they send her to New York. (She hates them, hates them for taking her away from her partner, hates them for making her leave her family.) “Of course,” he says. “You don’t want your mom to do it?”

“She flew back to California with Bill and Tara. She wanted to spend some time with Matthew.” Scully fiddles with her hands. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, of course not! I’ll take a couple vacation days, hang out. Snoop in your X File,” he teases, smirking. She smiles small, wistfully. “They shouldn’t be sending you,” he adds. “It’s ridiculous. You asked for no out-of-town assignments. What are you going to do if they want to promote you?”

“This is a one-time thing.”

“Who told you that? Obviously, if you do a good job they're not going to stick you back here. Right?”

She doesn’t care about promotions. She won’t let this go any further, not without him. Not at the risk of leaving Emily more.

“Agent Scully, we’re all set,” Ritter says from behind her. 

She makes the introductions quickly. “Tell Emily I’m sorry I had to leave so abruptly, and I’ll call her as soon as I can, okay?”

“I will,” Mulder promises. 

She sighs, finger tightening around her briefcase handle. “We should get going.”

“Off to New York,” Ritter adds. It’s going to be a long few days, she can already tell. It’s hard to work with anyone besides Mulder at this point. 

They leave unceremoniously. Scully’s still buzzing with irritation. She doesn’t want Ritter to see her look back, but she does. Mulder’s watching them. _ Be careful, _ he mouths.

_ I will, _ she mouths back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for spoilers for/events or aftermath of events portrayed for tithonus, two fathers, one son, and monday. reference to the unnatural. this part isn’t particularly gory outside of a sequence from monday, but it is definitely angsty and heavy. (it ends somewhere good tho.)
> 
> inside the x saved my ass like 20 times on this entire story so thanks to everyone over there. also i apologize for any medical discrepancies. in the footsteps of the great dr. dana scully, i googled it.

Emily's asleep. Mulder sits with his phone clenched in his hands. It's been almost half an hour since he told Ritter to find Scully. He's almost stupid with worry. _You're overreacting,_ he tries to tell himself. _She’s fine. She has to be fine. It’s going to be fine._

(He wants to be there, gun out and ready to protect her. He’d be at the airport already if it weren’t for Emily.)

His hands shake until the phone rings, and he picks up before the first ring even finishes. “Mulder,” he says, praying Scully’s voice is on the other end.

“Would that be a Fox Mulder, Dana Scully’s next of kin?”

 _Ohgodohgodohgod_. “Yes.”

“Miss Scully has been admitted to NYU Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. She’s in surgery now.”

The words feel like a punch in the stomach. He can’t breathe. “What, what happened?” he stammers.

“Agent who called it in says that she was shot in altercation with a suspect, but he wouldn’t give many details. Suspect was admitted, but was found dead on arrival.”

 _Fellig’s dead?_ He’s more confused then he needs to be at the moment. Scully is dying. Scully is dying, hours away in New York. “Is she… is she going to be okay?”

“It’s uncertain at this point, sir.”

His hands are still shaking. He forces his voice to go steady. “I’m coming up there.” He hangs up and tries to steady his breathing. He presses his palms hard against his eyes like he can erase the horror movie playing behind his eyelids. When he opens them, she will be there. When he opens them, she'll be holding Emily and smiling her rare smile that has become less and less rare, and everything will be okay.

He opens them, and she's not there.

Mulder calls Mrs. Scully. He rummages methodically, robotically, through Scully's junk drawer to find Bill’s number, dials in somewhat of a trance. “Scully residence,” Bill answers in a sleep-heavy voice.

“Bill,” he says. “Um, Mr. Scully.” His hands are still trembling. “This is Fox Mulder.”

“Why are you calling this house?” he snaps.

“I need to speak with your mother,” Mulder says, leaning his head against the cabinet and fighting fierce waves of nausea.

Bill’s tone changes from irritated to concerned. “Why? Has something happened to Dana? Or Emily? Are they okay?”

He swallows. “Dana’s, um, Dana’s been hurt. On a case in New York. She was shot.”

There’s a loud clatter on the other end. “ _What?_ ”

 _I’m so sorry,_ he thinks.

“Wha- how, how was she there? Where’s Emily?”

“I’m in DC with Emily. The Bureau sent Scully up to New York on a case.” He doesn’t have much time left before he falls apart. “I, um, don’t know what happened. They wouldn’t let me go with her. I would’ve stopped it if I could've.”

Bill laughs bitterly, almost hysterically. “You…” He stops. “Will she live?”

He can’t live without her. “I don’t know.”

“Let me tell my mother. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but it should come from me.”

“You’re right,” he says. “Listen, I'm… I’m going to take Emily up to New York to see her.”

“I guess… I guess we’ll probably do the same thing,” Bill says. He sounds just as broken. “Thank you for letting me know.”

The dial tone is a harsh, welcome tone in his ear. It takes everything in him not to throw the phone against the wall.

He wakes Emily as gently as possible, trying to ignore the grisly images flashing through his mind. “Emily, sweetie,” he whispers, his voice cracking. “You need to wake up, okay?”

Emily blinks blearily, rubbing her eyes. “What is it? Is Dana home?”

Oh, God, this is going to be harder than he thought. “No. We, um, we need to go to New York.”

She is looking up at him with sleepy confusion. “To visit Dana?”

He swallows painfully. “Dana’s been hurt.”

Her eyes widen. “What? Again?”

Mulder nods. He’s already packed her a bag and laid out clothes for her. “Can you get dressed, baby? We’re going to fly up there right now.”

Emily nods a little, crawling out of bed. He leaves her in the room with the door cracked and walks on numb legs to the kitchen, grabbing his keys with shaking hands.

///

Mulder holds her hand all the way through the airport, but it’s like holding her doll’s hand, stiff and unresponsive. He barely even looks at her as he talks to multiple people. She keeps thinking about Dana, somewhere far away and hurt. He hasn’t mentioned how she’s hurt, or if she’s okay. He lets her have the window seat. Once the plane is in the air, she finally asks him, “What happened to Dana?”

He gulps, setting a hand on her head. “She was, um, shot.”

 _With a gun?_ Emily doesn’t know a lot about guns - the first time she ever saw Dana with one, she’d sat Emily down at the kitchen table and told her about how guns were dangerous, and that if she was ever caught touching her gun, or Mulder’s, that she would be punished - but she’s pretty sure that people usually die when they get shot. She clutches her knees. “Is Dana gonna die?”

Mulder blinks hard. “Excuse me.” He gets up and heads for the back of the plane. He’s gone for a long time. Emily folds her hands and prays, like Dana taught her one time after church. _It's not fair,_ she thinks. _It’s not fair._ Her mommy and daddy are already gone and now Dana might be, too. She crosses herself like Dana does, but forgets what she’s supposed to say while doing it. She’s not sure if the prayer counts if she doesn’t say it the right way.

When Mulder gets back, he looks like he’s been crying. Emily falls asleep with her head against the seat, one hand curled around her cross like she can feel bits of Dana left in it after all this time.

///

They get to the hospital a few hours later, with Emily only slightly alert from her nap on the plane. Mulder carries her from the taxi to the information area in the hospital partially to conserve time and partially out of sympathy. She clings to his neck like a vine.

“Dana Scully,” he tells the woman, trying to stay calm. He doesn’t want to freak Emily out by shouting. “She was admitted for a gunshot wound to the abdomen.”

She looks them over. “Are you the husband?”

“This is her daughter,” Mulder says, absently rubbing Emily's back. “I’m her partner and next-of-kin.”

“She’s out of surgery. She’s stable, but not out of the woods yet.”

He lets go the breath he's been holding since he got the call. _She’sokayshe’sokay_ . _For now, she's okay._

“What does that mean?” Emily asks.

“It means she’s okay right now, but… they don’t know if she’s going to stay that way,” he tells her. The woman is watching them. He addresses her again: “Can I see her?”

“Not at this stage…” She stares at her screen. “Mr. Mulder.”

“Please,” he says softly. “I need to see her.” The urge to shout is incredible, only hindered by the small head drooping against his shoulder.

“She’s unconscious, sir.” The woman lowers her voice. “And I don’t know if the little one should see her mother like that.”

“I wanna see Dana,” Emily sniffles into his shirt.

He can’t take her back there to see her mother half-dead and buried in tubes. Not after everything she’s been through. And he can’t leave her alone in a hospital waiting room and go back himself. “Not right now,” he tells her in what he hopes is a soothing tone. “Will you let us know if anything changes?” he asks the woman.

“Of course.”

“Mulder,” Emily says pleadingly.

“We're going to go wait over here, okay?” He carries her towards the waiting room.

“Why can't I see Dana?”

“She's… asleep right now. You wouldn't be able to talk to her.”

She starts crying, nudging her thumb into her mouth. “It's not fair.”

“I know, baby, I know.” He settles into one of the familiarly hard chairs, and Emily shifts so that she is sitting in his lap. “I want to see her, too.” _More than you know._ “We're going to wait over here until we can, okay?”

“I want my mommy,” she whimpers.

He lets her sob almost hysterically until she falls asleep against his shoulder. It takes everything in him to not hysterically sob as well, or scream at the nurses, or to go into the bathroom and punch a mirror, watch the glass splinter for the satisfaction of seeing something break, to resemble how he feels right now.

Hours later, Mrs. Scully and Bill show up. Emily’s awake at this point. Bill spots them, and his face is unreadable. Mrs. Scully spots them, and it looks like she is just managing to hold it together. “Hi, Grandma. Hi, Uncle Bill,” Emily says quietly, climbing out of his lap and going over to hug her grandmother tightly.

Bill comes over to Mulder wearily. “Have you seen Dana yet?” he asks. Mulder shakes his head. “They wouldn’t let us back either,” he says, voice cracking. “Do you know what happened?”

“Not much, just that she was shot in an altercation with the suspect.”

“Why weren’t you up here with her? I thought you two were partners.” _Why didn't you protect her_ is what Bill means, shifting uncomfortably on his feet with some twisted look of rage and worry.

 _I should’ve been._ “They, uh, they seemed to think she still had a chance at her career having a future. As opposed to me.”

Bill’s mouth twists, but he doesn’t say anything about Mulder’s quality, work or otherwise. Instead, he says, “I told her to quit when she adopted Emily. I wish she’d listened.”

“I do, too,” Mulder says quietly.

“I’m so tired of worrying about my baby sister,” he says, and for a minute, he looks like a little kid. Like a man who’s worried about his sister. A face Mulder’s seen all too often in the mirror.

Mrs. Scully walks over to join them, holding Emily’s hand. “Why didn’t Dana tell me about the case?” she wants to know. “I would’ve flown up to take care of Emily.”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Grandma’s gonna take me to pray for Dana,” Emily says. “In the hospital chapel. So I can do it right.”

He nods. “I’ll come and get you if anything changes.”

“Thank you, Fox,” Mrs. Scully says. Bill follows them out of the waiting room, nodding stiffly at Mulder as he goes.

Mulder watches the clock while he waits for them to come back. Every tick seems to be a condemning factor on Scully’s life. Like their time is finally up. Like a fucking time bomb. (But it can’t be, it’s too early, there’s too much left undone.)

When they come back, Emily is yawning and rubbing her red-rimmed eyes. He instantly feels terrible - she’s worried, has been awake for hours, he shouldn’t rushed her up here but he had to see that Scully was all right… “I’m going to take Emily to a hotel so she can get some rest,” Mrs. Scully says, smoothing Emily's wild hair. Mulder nods approvingly.

Emily blinks up at her grandmother, and shakes her head. “Want to stay with Mulder,” she says.

They’re both shocked. “You need to get some rest, sweetie,” she tries. “It’s not good for you to just be waiting in a hospital like this.”

Emily lets go of Mrs. Scully’s hand to climb fully into his lap. Mulder is almost embarrassed. “No,” she says, sleepily but firmly.

“I can take her to a hotel,” he offers (even though he hates the idea of leaving Scully alone). “If you want to wait to see Dana.”

Bill’s expression is unreadable, but Mrs. Scully nods. “You look exhausted, too, Fox,” she says. “I’ll call you as soon as we have news.”

Mulder writes his cell phone number down on a hospital pad while Emily kisses her grandmother and uncle goodbye. “Tell Mommy I love her,” she says, sniffling, and Mulder realizes it’s the only time he’s ever heard her use that word.

He gets a room at a nearby hotel, nicer than the ones he’s used to on cases. He tucks Emily into bed at ten in the morning, and she falls asleep almost instantly. He cries in the shower, something he hasn’t done since her cancer, and smacks the tile wall until his palms and knuckles are bruised and stinging. _You didn’t take her from me then, so why would you take her from me now?_ he asks without really knowing who he is talking to.

///

They aren’t allowed to see Scully.

Mrs. Scully ends her vigil sometime around six that evening, coming to their hotel room. “They said she’s doing well, but she’s still unconscious and they don’t want her having visitors,” she says. “The doctor says it looks like she’ll pull through.” Her hands are shaking as she relays this, and Mulder remembers that the way he feels about Emily is what Scully’s mother feels for her. He can’t imagine what she’s going through, what she’s been through.

She offers to take Emily out for dinner. “I think it’d be good for us to take our minds off of things, sweetheart,” she tells her granddaughter. “You can… come back here after, if you want.”

Emily is sitting on the edge of her bed and sucking her thumb. Mulder’s never seen her do that before this happened. “Okay,” she says. “You want to come, Mulder?”

His stomach churns painfully at the thought of eating. And he senses that Mrs. Scully wants them to be alone. “I’ll order something in,” he lies. “Go and have fun, Em.” The placid look on her face suggests that she doesn’t expect to. She gives him a fierce hug before they leave.

Mulder calls the New York field office. All they can tell him is that Fellig is dead, and Ritter is being questioned about the events surrounding Scully’s shooting. He calls Skinner to give him an update. He paces the hotel room irritably.

He’d missed her, before, in DC had almost gone and crawled in her bed just to catch her scent. He’s at a point where it feels unnatural not to be around her, where nights spent alone in his couch feel lonelier than ever as opposed to nights on her couch. He misses her now, even while he’s waiting to find out if she’s going to live or die. He wants her to be sitting beside him with her hand on his shoulder and her soft voice reassuring him that it’s going to be okay.

They don’t hear much of anything for the next couple of days. Emily refuses to sleep in a hotel room without him. He and Mrs. Scully and Bill trade shifts at the hospital, an unspoken agreement. Mulder spends the mornings there, and afternoons and evenings with Emily at the hotel. Neither of them are very good company, both lost in their own heads. Emily stares listlessly at the TV, watching for hours over Scully’s limit for her, while Mulder watches the phone, tense and edgy. He tries occasionally to interest her in activity, hating to see her so lifeless, but they both aren’t interested. All they seem to be able to do is wait.

///

He’s woken by the phone ringing, and he grabs for it blindly and frantically, practically breathing the word “Hello?”

“Fox, she’s awake,” Mrs. Scully says, and it sounds like she’s crying. “We saw her. She asked about you and Emily.”

Mulder grips the phone more firmly. “Is she okay?”

“I think she’s on a lot of painkillers, but the doctors say she’s doing well for this stage. She wants to see you.”

He looks at the blurry red numbers of the clock - 3:00. “We’ll be over as soon as we can,” he says.

Emily’s still asleep, curled into a ball and clutching a handful of the sheet like she might clutch her stuffed bunny. “Em, wake up,” he whispers, shaking her gently.

She wakes slowly, murmuring, “Is Dana dead?”

“No, sweetie, no,” he says quickly. “She's awake.”

“Awake?” Emily rubs her brightening eyes, sitting up and kicking the blankets away hurriedly. “Can we go see her?”

He smiles for the first time in hours. “Definitely.”

They are at the hospital within the hour. Mrs. Scully and Bill have already left, but the woman directs them on back. Mulder takes Emily’s hand and leads her to the room  carefully, telling her, “Sweetie, listen, you’ve got to be gentle… Dana’s in a lot of pain, worse than when she was in the hospital before. You can’t get up on the bed or move it or anything.”

Emily nods rapidly, already on the verge of tears again. “Let’s go,” she says, tugging firmly.

He has to stop at the door, stricken by the sight of her. She has tubes protruding from familiar places, and she’s pale and weak looking. But she’s alive, the heart monitor announcing it loudly.

Emily wastes no time, barreling into the room, her voice cracking as she shouts, “Mommy!” Scully’s eyes widen at the sound of it. Emily stops herself from running into the bed, sneakers skidding across the floor. She is crying. Mulder watches from the door.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Scully rasps. She lifts a hand to her daughter’s cheek, wincing a little as she does so and being careful of the IV. “It’s okay. I’m gonna be fine.”

“I was scared,” Emily says through hiccups. “I thought you were gonna die.”

She shakes her head, swallowing. “I'm not leaving you that easily,” she whispers croakily, blinking back tears in her eyes.

She’s alive, she’s really alive. Mulder steps into the room, mutters, “Hey”, smiling gently.

Scully half smiles back at him, eyes half closed. “Hey,” she says, lifting her IV-free hand slightly to reach for him.

He slides his fingers through hers, and lifts her hand gently. When she doesn't make a sound of protest, he presses his mouth against her wrist, overwhelmed. Her life is pulsing against him, and he is more than aware of how close he came to losing her again. ( _Again_.) Scully's thumb moves in an almost clumsy motion over his cheek, and he kisses her wrist again, squeezing her hand in his as he lowers it to her side.

They don't talk a lot - Scully is weak, and Emily's tired, falling asleep with her head on the bed on the left side. He just holds her hand, caressing the back of it with his thumb in a steady rhythm. “I'm sorry I brought Emily up here,” he says. “I just…” _I had to see you._

“Thank you,” she murmurs. “I'm glad you did.”

He smiles. He wants to crawl beside her and hold her close and never let her go.

The nurse shows up minutes later, politely suggesting they should go so Scully can get her rest. Mulder nods, kissing Scully's hand again before rounding the bed to scoop up Emily. “Got to head out, Scully,” he says. “You rest, okay? We'll be back soon. I love you.”

It just slips out, and part of him regrets saying it as he turns away, Emily's head lolling against his shoulder, hopes she doesn't hear. To the point, where he almost misses, thinks he's imagining, her soft reply of, “I love you, too.”

///

Their visits remain frequent over the next few days. Scully gradually grows more attentive as she heals and her painkiller levels can be  lowered, but she remains weak and listless, sleeping a lot. Although Emily claims to not want to leave her mother's bedside, Mulder can tell she gets bored, and the environment of the hospital can't be good for her. So she shifts between himself, and Mrs. Scully during the day. (Bill has to fly back a day after Scully regains consciousness, but he calls his mother frequently for updates.) Mulder spends as much time as he can in the chair beside Scully's bed, holding her hand.

A week after the accident, she is sleeping restlessly while he flips through his copy of the coroner report. Cause of death is sparse, of course ( _single gunshot wound_ ), but there's the usual list of physical attributes at time of death. The thing he finds most strange is the lack of gunpowder on Fellig’s hands, but he brushes it off as some kind of mistake.

Scully starts to whimper a little, tossing and turning in her sleep. Mulder lifts a hand to cup her cheek without even thinking about it, making unconscious soothing noises. “It's okay,” he says as Scully comes out of the throes of sleep. “Fellig’s dead, he can't…” He stops when he realizes he's reverting to his developed habits for Emily's nightmares over the past week.

Scully is blinking up at him blearily. “Mulder, what the hell?”

He sighs and moves her hand away from her face. “I'm sorry, you were dreaming and I was defaulting to what I do when Emily has a nightmare…”

“No,” she says, grabbing his hand before he can move it too far away. “I mean, I don't necessarily _need_ that level of comfort but that’s not what I… what were you talking about? Fellig didn't hurt me.”

“Scully, he shot you,” Mulder says, horror mounting at the realization that she might have memory loss.

She shakes her head firmly. “No, Ritter shot Fellig and the bullet hit me.”

He grows cold with a completely different kind of horror. “What?”

Scully's eyes widen. “Did Ritter not say that to the FBI?”

“No,” he whispers, clutching at her fingers. “He said you were shot when you apprehended the suspect. The New York field office said they were questioning him about the events of the shooting, but I assumed… I never thought…”

Scully's eyes are still wide. “I don't understand… it was an accident.”

“Did Fellig have a weapon?” Dammit, he should've asked for a copy of the forensics report.

“Not that I know of, just a camera…”

He is practically quivering with anger at this point. “I should go, Scully.”

Scully tightens her hold on his hand. “Mulder, don't do anything rash. It was an accident.”

He doesn't think so. And he needs to find out for himself. “Get some rest,” he says softly, letting go of her hand and leaning forward to kiss her forehead.

“Mulder,” she tries again, but he's already out of the room.

///

The agents at the New York field office confirm it: there was no gun on the premises beside Ritter’s and Scully's - both of which were found on them. And there was no second bullet found in Fellig or anywhere in the apartment. “We're under the assumption that Agent Scully was hit with the bullet that Ritter shot Alfred Fellig with,” the agent he talks to says. “It looks like an accident.”

“But why not come forward, then?” Mulder presses. “Why pin it on Fellig?”

The agent shrugs. “We have him on suspension until we can figure out what happened. We need to talk to Agent Scully, put the pieces together before we decide how to proceed.”

He ducks behind a computer on his way out and searches for Ritter’s address. He takes a taxi with one hand closed over the butt of his gun.

The apartment’s empty. Bone dry. It's like Ritter was never there. For a minute, Mulder isn't entirely sure he has the right place. He turns and there is the smoker, light glinting at the end of his Morley. “Don't be disillusioned, Mulder,” he says cheerfully. “We have ways of making people disappear.”

Mulder grabs a handful of his shirt and shoves him against the wall, shoulder first. “You bastard,” he hisses, pressing the gun into his temple. “You bastard, what did you do? _What did you do?_ ”

The smoker takes a drag on the cigarette. “I think you know,” he says. “I think you understand by now the lengths my colleagues would go to get the girl back.”

Something inside his chest clenches, and he shoves the smoker against the wall harder. “She's a _little girl_ ,” he hisses.

“She's an experiment. Or at least that's the way my colleagues see her.” The smoker shrugs. “I'm not in favor of this, you know - taking the girl back, killing Agent Scully to make it easier. I never was.”

“You cured her,” Mulder hisses through clenched teeth.

“Why not? I cured Agent Scully. I see it in our best interests to keep you happy. There had been a recent… discrepancy between myself and my colleagues. I couldn't give you your sister, so I gave you health for Agent Scully's daughter. In hopes that you'd reconsider the deal I offered you last summer.”

Mulder laughs bitterly. “You can't honestly think I'd come work for you bastards. Not after this. Not after you almost _killed_ Agent Scully.”

“That wasn't my decision,” the man says simply. “Besides, you could protect them that way.”

His grip on the smoker’s shirt loosens. “What?”

“You think they'd go after Scully and the girl if you were an ally? You could prevent this from ever happening again, Mulder. Think about it.”

Mulder slams him fully into the wall again. “Fuck you.” He leaves the apartment with his gun still drawn and his stomach turning.

///

She's a little more than worried about Mulder.

Her mom has left Emily at the hospital while she went back to the hotel to take a nap - “So you can have some time alone,” she'd said - and Scully is grateful. Emily's been reluctant to leave her side through this entire ordeal, calls her Mommy now. (Scully wants to cry every time she hears it.) At some point during the visit, Emily kicked off her shoes and climbed up beside her on the bed, curling against her side while attempting to avoid her stomach. The nurse who came by disapproved, but Scully doesn't mind - the pain has gone down gradually over the past week, and besides, how could she possibly be in pain, with the warm weight of her daughter against her? The past week has been hell on her daughter, that much has been clear in the four days she's been conscious.

But Emily's been asleep for almost an hour now, and her thoughts have turned back to Mulder. Wherever the hell he went. Something dangerous, probably, when she's stuck in a hospital bed and can't do anything to help him.

The nurse comes by to check one more time, and then he's there, knocking on the door before coming in. Scully breathes a sigh of relief when she sees him. “Hey,” he says softly, reaching out to take her hand. He nudges his thumb against hers and she nudges back absently in a thumb-war esque motion. “Is she hurting you?” he asks, brushing strands of hair from Emily's forehead with his free hand.

“She's fine,” Scully says. “Mulder, what happened?”

He sits on the edge of the bed, squeezes her hand like they might fall apart. “Ritter is gone,” he says. “I ran into the smoker at his apartment. He said…” Mulder swallows and looks at the tiled ground. “He indicated that they'd had Ritter shoot you so they could get to Emily.”

Her heart skips a beat and nausea overtakes her. “Oh, God,” she says. “Oh my god.” She leans forward on the bed, wrapping her arms around Mulder's neck and burying her head against his shoulder.

“Scully, I'll hurt you,” he whispers.

“No, you won't,” she says into his t-shirt.

He wraps his arms around her back in response, his head ducked down and his nose pressed to the hollow of her collarbone.

Scully shudders. “They would've…”

“It's okay. They didn't. They're not going to. I promise.”

“I thought killing me was too  high profile.” She grabs a fistful of his shirt. “God, Mulder, my mom… she would've gotten Emily. And they would've come for her.”

Mulder makes something like a choking sound, and she feels a warm liquid against her shoulder and realizes he is crying. “So close,” he says hoarsely. “It was so close, Scully.”

She doesn't have to ask what he means. They hold each other for a long minute.

///

“I hope you're okay with me never leaving your side again,” Mulder says softly in her ear as they ride the elevator up to his hotel room.

If the circumstances were any different, she might be irritated by that comment, but after everything that's happened, she welcomes it. She reaches for his hand. “I think I can live with that.”

Emily holds her hand on the other side, grinning eagerly up at her. She's been overwhelmingly excited ever since she heard that Scully was getting out of the hospital. “It's a cool hotel room, Mommy,” she says. “The beds are comfy, so you can rest. And we can watch some of your boring movies on TV if you want.”

Scully smiles down at her, squeezing her hand. “Thanks, Em.”

They don't mention the single hotel room. Mulder doesn't meet her eyes as he unlocks the door, but his thumb is tracing circles on the back of her hand. Once they're inside the room, he leads her straight to one of the beds and shoots her a look when she tries to protest. “You need to rest,” he says firmly. Scully huffs out a frustrated sigh in response and sits on the bed, Emily climbing up right beside her.

She lets Emily pick the TV shows.

Mulder is absorbed at first in getting everything together - organizing the neglected room, getting ice, ordering food from room service, frequently checking on Scully. Eventually, he enters and exits the bathroom and heads for the other bed. “Mulder,” she says, motioning for him to sit on her other side.

“Scully, I don't want to-”

“Mulder,” she says again, and that's all it takes to convince him. He sits beside her - shoulder to shoulder, thighs aligned, arm wrapped around her shoulder. She turns to fully embrace him, and they hold each other tightly, her chin on his shoulder and his face pressed to the side of her neck.

“Mommy? Mulder?” Emily asks from her side, confused. “What's going on?”

Scully turns gently, trying not to irritate her wound. “Nothing,” she says, enjoying the feeling of Mulder's arms around her. “We've just missed each other.”

“Oh,” Emily says like she understands. She leans forward and they end up in an awkward three-person hug, with Mulder hunched over Scully in an attempt to hug them both and Emily practically in Scully's lap because of her small arms. But Scully relishes it.

Eventually, Emily slithers back down under the covers, and Scully settles back against the pillows. But Mulder keeps his arm around her and she rests her head on his shoulder in a moment of small weakness. She needs this. He needs this.

It gets late. Dusk fades into night and cartoons fade into “grown-up shows”, which put Emily right to sleep, her head lolling against Scully’s arm. When Scully herself is half asleep, the weight on her right side rises as Mulder starts for the other bed. She grabs a handful of his shirt, whispering, “Stay.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says again.

“You won’t.”

It doesn’t take much more coaxing than that. Mulder crawls in beside her, arm draped gently over her and nose pressed to the nape of her neck. It’s almost strange, since the closest they’ve come to sharing actual sleeping space is limited to falling asleep on the couch together, or the couple of times they’d worked on files in her hotel room and she’d fallen asleep. She hasn’t been this warm in weeks, though, with Mulder on one side of her and Emily on the other.

“Mulder?” she whispers.

“Mmm?” he mutters, half asleep. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Hmm,” he murmurs, only slightly more awake. “What is it?”

“I've been thinking about changing you to Emily's guardian in my will.”

Mulder jolts with surprise behind her. “Scully,” he says, amazed. “Are you sure?”

She reaches for his hand, squeezes it. “Of course I am, Mulder. Emily loves you, and I know you'd be able to protect her if anything happened to me. So if you're… interested, I'd very much like it.”

“Of course I'm interested,” he whispers into her neck. “It's not even a… Of course I'd do it. But nothing's gonna happen to you, Scully.”

“Something could.” Emily chooses this moment to flip over in her sleep, tossing her head against the pillow, and Scully feels something in her chest clench, looking at her daughter. Emily had been the first thing she'd thought of when the bullet pushed through her, that she needed to get back to her.

“Nothing will,” he says stubbornly, and she remembers why he'd been the second thing she thought of on the reaches of death. “But I'll be there for Emily if it does.”

“Thank you,” she whispers, and his arm tightens briefly over her before loosening again. She wants to tell him that it doesn't hurt when he holds her that close.

They sleep.

///

He drives them home from the airport; they don't even talk about him going back to his apartment. Flights are a little more than exhausting, so Scully immediately retreats to her room for a nap. Mulder fixes sandwiches for dinner and eats on the living room rug with Emily, punctuated by frequent checking on Scully.

Emily's still in front of the TV at bedtime, chin cupped in her hands and socked feet in the air. She goes to kiss Scully good night, and asks Mulder to stay with her mother during the night. “In case something bad happens,” she says, quite serious. “So you can stop it.”

Mulder laughs a little. “I don't know how much your mom would like that, Em.”

“You did it in the hotel,” she says plaintively. “Please, Mulder?”

They argue about it for a few good minutes before Mulder finally agrees to ask her. “Nothing's going to happen, though,” he adds firmly. “It's gonna be okay.”

Emily nods. She reaches up to hug him, and plants a kiss on his cheek. “Night, Mulder.”

He hugs her tightly and kisses her forehead. “Night, Em,” he whispers.

He goes into Scully's room hesitantly. “Scully, you okay?” he whispers, reaching out to brush hair away from her face.

“Mmf,” she mutters, turning her face into the pillow. “I'm okay.”

Not wanting to invoke the wrath of an early-rising four-year-old, and absolutely sure she'll say no, he starts, tentatively, “Emily, um, wanted me to stay with you tonight in case something happened… I told her…”

Wordlessly, Scully grabs his hand and tugs him down beside her, resting her head against his shoulder. “Stay,” she says into his hair.

He stays.

///

“You should marry Mommy,” Emily announces over a soggy cup of vanilla ice cream.

He’s in mid-bite when she says this, and he immediately chokes on his spoon.

“Are you choking? Mommy told me to whack a person who’s choking on the back. And just in case, she showed me how to do the Heimlich maneuver on a doll. I asked about it and she said it was valuable knowledge or something like that.”

Mulder laughs in spite of his coughing. “That's your mom.”

“Yeah,” Emily says pointedly. “And you're my dad. So you should marry her.”

Mulder looks at her. He almost looks like he’s going to cry. “You think of me as your dad?”

“Duh,” Emily says. (She thinks this was obvious, and doesn't understand his surprise. There’s no one else who’s going to be her dad, no one else her mom cares about like that.) “So you should marry Mommy.”

Mulder coughs again, covering his mouth. “I… I dunno about that, Em.”

“Come on,” she whines, bending the plastic spoon in her hands. “You told her _I love you_ when she was in the hospital! And she said it back!”

“You heard that?” Mulder twists the napkin between his palms,looking scared.

“Uh-huh.” Emily swings her legs, kicking her feet between the metal table leg and booth, and makes a face at him. “Come on, Mulder, it’d be awesome.”

He laughs. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, Em, but I’m not sure it works that way.” He rips at the napkin a little and asks about TV programs she's seen recently. Emily is a little more than frustrated at the subject change.

She tries her mother at home later. “You should marry Mulder,” she says, chewing on the edge of her plastic spoon.

She jumps, not even telling Emily  (like she usually does) that chewing like that is bad for her teeth. “Marry Mulder?” she asks incredulously. “What gave you that idea?”

“On TV, kids’ parents are married, unless one of them is dead or they don't like each other. And you guys are alive _and_ you like each other, I heard you say it!”

She kind of laughs. “That's not the case in every situation, sweetie. Everybody has a different type of family. Mulder and I don't have to be married for him to be a part of ours.”

Emily raps her spoon on the table rhythmically. “You should marry Mulder anyway. I miss him when he's not around.”

She's got a thoughtful kind of look on her face. “Me, too,” she says quietly.

Emily draws a picture of a ring and stuffs it in her mother's case in an attempt to hint at Mulder. They don't say anything about it later, but the picture is gone. She suspects that they are avoiding the question.

///

Nearly a week after Scully’s return to work, and they’re already being pulled into some crazy plot. Mulder’s hesitant at first, but changes his mind when Scully brings up her abduction. As soon as he agrees to visit Cassandra Spender, she reaches for the phone on his desk. “What’re you doing?” he asks curiously.

“Calling my mom to see if she’ll get Emily from the Gunmen’s. If this ends up being more complicated than we thought and we don't get home on time, I don’t want her to be stranded there.”

He touches her wrist, just below the cut-off of her sleeve. “Scully, it’s too soon,” he says quietly.

She looks down at him. “I’m not letting you go alone,” she says firmly. “Besides, the people who abducted me are the same people who keep trying to take our daughter. Mulder, this could be our chance to take them down.”

“I can do that. You don’t need to put yourself at risk again.”

“I’m at risk every day at this job, Mulder.”

“Well, then, maybe you should quit.”

Scully glares at him. “I’m not having this argument right now,” she says. “Nothing’s going to happen to either of us. We’re partners, so we go together.”

She tucks the phone between her ear and shoulder and starts dialing. Mulder doesn’t bother to argue.

///

The following sequence of events seems to happen faster than either of them can comprehend - their meeting with Cassandra, their dismissal from the Bureau, Cassandra showing up at Mulder’s apartment demanding to be killed… By the time they’re both in quarantine, Scully barely knows what’s happened.

Neither of them are very happy to see Diana Fowley. Mulder seems to be doing his best to ignore her, while Scully tensely asks about Cassandra. Diana seems to be a little nervous, but she continues to firmly evade Scully’s questions and deny her request to see Cassandra. “She’s isolated,” she says.

“Yes, and I am a medical doctor,” Scully snaps.

“Who is suspended indefinitely from her position at the FBI.”

She is ready to scream. She hates being trapped here for no reason, hates the lack of answers, hates these people for what they’ve done to her daughter. “Fine,” she says. “So maybe you can tell me what you want with Emily. And why an attempt was recently made on my life to ensure that you could get to her.”

Diana blinks in surprise. “I don’t know what you’re…”

“Oh, come on,” Mulder says through clenched teeth, the first thing he’s said since she’s entered. “The smoker already confirmed that Peyton Ritter was one of your cronies. Did you have anything to do with that? When Scully almost died?”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Diana says, firm tone back. “I was sorry to hear about your accident, Agent Scully…”

Scully pulls the blood pressure cuff off in frustration, and pushes past Fowley out of the room, Mulder right behind her.

///

He finds Marita in a lab. He hasn't heard from her since the incident at the phone booth, since Scully was burned. “If they catch me with you, they'll kill me this time,” she says when she sees him.

She looks awful, sickly. “What have they done to you?”

“Tests. Terrible, terrible tests.”

“Like the tests on Cassandra Spender?” he asks.

“No. No, Cassandra Spender is part of a program that's been going on for 25 years. A hybrid program.”

 _Hybrid program…_ he thinks of the green on Emily’s neck in the children's home. “Then what were the tests on you?”

“I was infected with the alien virus - the black oil. My tests were on the vaccine against it... being developed in secret,” she says sourly.

“In secret from the alien colonists. The hybrid program was in cooperation with the aliens but the conspirators never intended to succeed... to finish the work,” he says, realizing.

“They were buying time,” Marita confirms.

“To make a vaccine and build a weapon.”

“But Cassandra Spender happened.”

His thoughts have turned completely to Emily, to her green blood and the “experiments” Diana had referred to. Her story sounds too similar to that of Cassandra Spender. “She's the first, isn't she?” he says. “She's the first successful alien/human hybrid.”

“If she is... and the aliens learn a hybrid exists... colonization of the planet will begin. With no stopping it.” Marita looks at him gravely. “Agent Scully’s daughter was in that same program, you know. I heard them talking.”

“She was a hybrid?”

“Yes, but she was infected with the virus as well.”

“That’s what she was cured of,” Mulder breathes.

“Now that they’ve had a success, they’ll want to make more.”

“Shit,” he says. “Shit, they’re going to… I’ve got to go. We’ve got to… can you come? You should get away from here, Marita.”

She’s already shaking her head. “They won’t let me leave,” she says. “They won’t let you leave with me. You should hurry, or they won’t let you leave at all.”

Shit, shit, shit. “I have to go,” he says again. “I’m sorry, Marita.” He exits the lab and jogs down the hall, ignoring the pinch of his shoes. Scully’s waiting in the room he came from. “We have to go, Scully,” he says. “They’re going to try and take her again.”

She pales and scrambles to her feet, looking frantic. “How do you…”

“I’ll explain. We don’t have much time, Scully, come on.”

Scully pushes past him and heads down the hall, moving only slightly faster than him.

///

Mrs. Scully immediately looks worried when she opens the door. “Dana, what’s going on? Two men who claimed to be from the FBI were just here saying they needed to take Emily into custody.”

Scully instantly blanches, and Mulder feels his own heart skip a few beats. “But you didn’t let them take her, did you?” she stammers.

“No, they wouldn’t tell me why. They’re… with the people who hurt you before, aren’t they?” Mrs. Scully looks a little sick.

“It’s really a long story, Mom, and I’m sorry I’ve scared you and that I don’t have time to explain, but we really need to go. Where’s Emily?”

“Upstairs in bed.”

“I’ll get her,” Mulder says. Mrs. Scully nods, and steps aside to let him in.

He scales the stairs quickly, going to a few wrong rooms before he hits the right one. Emily lifts her sleep-tousled head from the pillow as soon as he enters. He gets the sense she wasn’t sleeping. “Mulder?” she whispers.

“Hey, Em.” He scoops her up and carries her out.

“Someone was yelling at Grandma,” she says. “I think it was bad. Is Mommy with you?”

Mulder nods, descending the stairs carefully.

Emily reaches out for Scully as soon as they reach the door. “Hi, Mommy,” she says solemnly.

“Hey, Em.” Scully hugs her quickly, kissing the top of her head. “Give Grandma a hug, okay? We’re going on… vacation, and I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

Mrs. Scully looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t, accepting Emily’s outstretched arms. She hugs Scully tightly next, and then Mulder, to his surprise. “Please be careful, Dana,” she says.

“We will, Mom, I promise.” Scully hugs her mother again and kisses her cheek, whispering, “I’ll call you as soon as it’s safe.” Mulder hears it as he carries Emily outside. He hopes to god Emily didn’t.

“Where are we going?” she asks as he straps her into her carseat. They’d had to take a taxi from Fort Marlene, and had picked up Scully’s car before driving straight to Baltimore.

“I’m not sure, baby,” he says, smoothing her pillow hair. “Why don’t you try and get some sleep, though? I think it’s going to be a long drive.”

///

They stop at a hotel two hours out. Scully is in the backseat to unbuckle a sleeping Emily when Mulder notices the men in suits heading their way. They have guns. “Scully,” he says. “Scully, look out.”

A gunshot whizzes past the car, shattering the left mirror. Mulder barely avoids it by ducking into the car. “Mulder?” Scully shouts.

“Get in!” he manages, shutting the door and starting the car. Another bullet is fired, whizzing just past the window. Scully shuts the door to the backseat, and he hits the gas, swerving a little clumsily out of the parking lot.

“Mulder, are you okay?” Scully sounds panicked. He checks the rearview mirror; she’s bent over Emily, smoothing hair back, but her face is turned towards him, her eyes terrified.

“I’m fine,” he says. “How about you?”

“I’m okay.”

“Mommy?” Emily is awake, sounding like she’s on the verge of tears. “What happened?”

“Nothing, sweetie,” Scully lies. “Something just… scared me. I’m sorry we woke you.” Their voices turn into a peaceful lull in the background, Emily's tearstained and Scully's shaky but soothing.

Mulder drives, taking random and insane curves in an attempt to lose them until he finds a car rental place. “They'll know this car,” he tells Scully, and she nods wordlessly. The badge is more than enough to convince them to hand over a car. He drives ten miles over the speed limit for two hours until they reach a hotel. Scully manages to get Emily inside without waking her up and double-bolts the doors. They fall into the other bed wordlessly.

///

Scully has a tendency to sleep with her arm wrapped tightly around his chest and her head buried in the space between his shoulderblades. Mulder doesn’t sleep. He stares at her limp hand, and at Emily tossing and turning restlessly in the other bed. Sunlight sweeps into the room in pink shards under the curtain. They’d gotten to the hotel at four in the morning.

He loves them both, there’s no question about that. And this can’t go on. They found them somehow, maybe had been following them the entire time. It’s only a matter of time before they find them again. And what will happen then? He’d give his life to protect them, and he knows Scully would do the same, but then there’d be no one left. They’d win.

He thinks back to what the smoker told him in Ritter’s apartment. That he can protect Scully and Emily if he joins them. It’s not the first time he’s been faced with this prospect, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Mulder slips out from under Scully’s arm. She doesn’t wake, curls in on herself as if she misses his presence. He slips into the bathroom, turns on the shower to muffle the sound and calls Diana.

“Fowley,” she answers, clipped.

“Diana, I need a favor,” he says shortly.

“Fox,” she says, shocked. “I’m… surprised you want any favors from me.”

“This isn’t about you, this is about Scully and Emily,” he says. “I’m not going to let Emily become an experiment, and I’m not gonna let Scully die in the process. Your friend, the smoker… CGB Spender… he told me they’d be protected if I joined you.”

“I think it could be arranged,” she says carefully. “But, Fox…”

“They know where my sister is,” Mulder says, as if to convince himself that he is doing the right thing. “I know that wasn’t her last year, in the diner.”

“Yes, they know what happened to Samantha.”

This is going to kill him, but he can’t think of a way around it. “Can you help me?”

“Yes, I can. I assume you’re well out of DC? Meet me at El Rico Air Force Base tonight. Something’s going to happen.” She pauses, hesitating. “Fox, I’m sorry. I really did care about you… loved you… and I never meant for it to go this far.”

He bites his lip hard enough to taste blood. All he can see when he closes his eyes is Scully. “Well,” he says. “We’ll have plenty of time to discuss it.” He hangs up sharply.

He wets his hair before exiting the bathroom. Scully is awake, smiling blearily at him from where she sits on the edge of the bed. “Hey,” she says. “Sleep okay?”

“Yes,” he lies, biting back a yawn. “Listen, Scully, we’re low on supplies and we probably shouldn’t be stopping at restaurants or anything like that. I’m going to make a run to the store, okay?”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

“It’s safer for me to be seen by myself then the three of us to be seen together,” he says.

Scully makes a face of reluctant acceptance, wrinkling her nose in a way that makes him want to kiss her. “Be careful, Mulder,” she says finally.

“I will.” Unable to stop himself, he leans down and kisses her, something he’s been thinking about doing since last summer. She wraps her arm around his neck to pull him closer, and he presses a hand to the small of her back. _I’m never going to be able to leave her_ , he thinks.

She’s the one to pull away first, looking up at him with the first genuine smile since they started this trip. “Hi,” she whispers goofily.

He leans his forehead against hers. Their noses bump together. _Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou._

“Lock the door behind me, okay?” he whispers.

///

He takes a taxi from the hotel to another car rental place. She will probably figure it out when she sees that he left the car, but he’ll hopefully be gone by then.

Scully starts calling his cell phone two hours after he left. Every time it rings, it feels like a stab in the heart. She leaves voicemails he doesn’t listen to because he knows he’ll turn around if he does. Eventually, he turns the phone off and leaves it in his seat.

He reaches Alexandria five hours later and is halfway to his apartment before he remembers it’s quarantined. He goes to the Gunmen’s instead.

Frohike meets him at the door with a tremendous glare. “Scully’s called here five times looking for you,” he growls. “Why the hell did you abandon her and the kid in a hotel room?”

“It’s a long story, Melvin. I need to borrow a computer.”

Frohike unsuccessfully tries to block him. “Not until you explain yourself.”

“What’s going on, Mulder?” Byers asks.

He sighs. Better to explain than to get in a fight, he guesses. “I’m going over to the other side to protect Scully and Emily.”

The three of them gape at him in shock like they never expected it out of him. “Mulder…” Byers finally says.

“Look, they’re going after them and I can’t protect them,” he says helplessly. “They’re not going to stop until they have Emily, which will probably mean killing Scully. If I’m there, I might can stop it.”

“It goes against everything you believe in…” Langly starts.

Mulder shuts his eyes in an attempt at composure. “I know, I know it does,” he says. “Believe me, I do. But there’s nothing else I _can_ do, don’t you get it? At least if I’m in, I can work against them from the inside. Poison them from the inside out.”

They’re silent, staring at him. He still feels sick, stomach churning with the weight of what he’s about to do. “So why do you need a computer?” Frohike finally asks.

“I’ve got to leave Scully with something,” he says. “I’m not going to leave her with no explanation. I’m going to email her.”

///

_Scully,_

_I’m sorry I left you both like that. You have to understand that I was offered a deal, the same deal I was offered when you were sick. And to save you both, I decided to take it. I’m not going to watch you die, and I’m not going to let anything happen to Emily. I can’t. I care too much about you both. You can hate me, but please don’t come after me. I’d rather you hate me and be alive then the opposite._

_Tell Emily I love her and that I’m sorry I wasn’t a better dad._

 - _ _M__

 

///

He pulls in at El Rico Air Force Base just as the light emanates from inside. There’s screaming. His stomach twists at the sound.

The smoker is ducking into a car. “Fox, go!” Diana shouts. “Get out of here!” She climbs into the car as well.

Smoke is billowing out of the building. Feeling nauseous, Mulder gets back into the car and drives off.

///

What happened becomes clear the next day, in Kersh’s office. The Syndicate is gone, except for the smoker and Diana. They’re safe, Emily’s safe.

The bigger surprise is when Spender tells Kersh to put them back on the X Files. Mulder wonders if it came from grief over his mother or being humbled in general.

“You have answers now? Why didn't I hear about those answers before?” Kersh demands when he is gone.

“No one would listen,” Mulder says simply.

///

He calls Diana and leaves her a voicemail saying that the deal is off. As bizarre as it sounds, he believes the smoker and Diana that they don't care about Emily. And even if they did, it'd be hard to take her down with the Syndicate in shambles. He asks Frohike to call Scully and tell her it’s safe. “I seriously doubt she wants to talk to me,” he says.

That theory is confirmed when she shows up at his door that night, anger written all over her face. “Scully…” he starts helplessly.

“You’re an asshole, Mulder.” She throws her arm out to open the door more widely and stalks into the apartment.

“I know… but, Scully…”

“What the hell were you thinking?” she hisses. “That you could just walk away? _Lie_ to me about it? What did you think I would tell Emily, that the only father she has just up and left, apparently forever?”

“I did it to keep you safe!” he protests.

“What if it hadn’t worked? What if they’d come after us anyway and killed me? Then what happens to Emily?”

He closes his eyes. “I had to try, Scully,” he whispers. “It’s happened again and again and I didn’t know what to do.”

“You could’ve talked to me about it.” She is glaring at him with fury he hasn’t seen since Ed Jerse.

“I should’ve,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Scully.”

Scully nods once. “I know, Mulder.” She heads for the door.

“Wait.” Mulder reaches out to touch her wrist. “Scully, wait, what are we… You know we have the X Files back, right?”

She nods.

“So, what…”

“I need some time, okay? Please.” She blinks hard as if to hold back tears. “I thought you were dead for hours, Mulder. Even with the car still there… I thought they'd gotten to you before you even left the parking lot. I never thought you'd leave like that. You'd kill me if I'd done that to you.”

The door shutting behind her sounds like the nails on his coffin.

///

Their first day back in the office is considerably awkward. Mulder spends most of the day flipping through files and trying desperately to meet her eye. Scully spends most of the day reorganizing everything - hanging his damn poster, tacking up a picture of them at Emily's birthday party on the wall. She wants to cry when she looks at it.

He buys her lunch in an attempt to get through to her, even adds the bee pollen to her yogurt. He’s trying so damn hard, and she wants to let it work. Especially when she remembers how Emily’s been asking about him every night, or the way he’d kissed her before he’d left. But the other part of her remembers what had happened after he left - the terrified way Emily’s voice had trembled when she’d asked, “Where’s Mulder?”, or the way he’d let her calls go to voicemail, or the terror she’d felt (that they’d found him and killed him and now they were coming for her daughter), and that spectacular combination of grief and blinding anger when she’d read that email. She knows why he did it, understands it in a way because she surely would've done the same thing in a similar position, but Mulder’s martyrdom is so damn irritating at times. He’ll willingly sacrifice himself without a thought of what it would do to the people he leaves behind. She doesn’t know how she would function if he died, much less how she would comfort Emily.

He looks at her expectantly when she gets up to leave, and she says, “I still need time. I’m sorry, Mulder.” The puppy-like look on his face is almost enough to ask him to come back with her, but remembering how he kissed her and left is enough to stop her.

Emily asks if he’s coming over as soon as she sees her, tugging on Scully’s blazer when she hugs her. “Not tonight,” she replies, refusing to meet the Gunmen’s eyes. Emily pouts, but doesn’t bother arguing.

They’d shared a bed every night since New York before this. Her bed is too cold without him on the other side.

The second day, he is clearly irritated. The tension between them only builds when he asks her to cover for him at a meeting while he goes to deposit a check at the bank. She’s irritated, but used to it. Skinner finally asks about Mulder’s report. She gets up wordlessly to go and look for him.

///

After the body is taken away in a bag, after Bernard is bundled into a police car, defeat and grief written across his face, only then does Mulder allow himself to go to Scully and pull her against him with desperation, her silky head landing just below his chin. To his surprise, she hugs him back with the same desperation, hands fisting in the back of his coat and tugging him closer, ignoring the stares of the police officers interviewing the other hostages. Her words vibrate against his throat as she says, “Mulder, who was that woman? Did you know her?”

“Not well,” he says honestly. He has no memories of the supposed other days, but the fact that Pam saved him… he can't get his head around it. Someone else is dead because of him, someone he didn't even know.

“I'm so glad you're okay,” she whispers, low enough so that no one else hears them.

The memory of the fear that had worked its way under his skin when he saw her in such close proximity with a gun returns, and he holds her tighter, saying, “Ditto” in a hoarse voice. 

Skinner is entering the bank, and Mulder pulls away reluctantly. If Skinner saw them, he doesn't mention it. They give him an abridged version of events, and Scully doesn't glare at him when he mentions the _Groundhog Day_ theory. “I'm sure this was a difficult experience, agents,” Skinner says kindly, not mentioning the theory either. “Why don’t you take the day off?”

“Thank you, sir,” Scully says gratefully, grabbing Mulder’s sleeve to lead him out of the bank. Her hand slips down and slides into his as they reach the parking garage. They mutually climb into his car and drive to the Gunmen's to get Emily.

When she comes running out of one of the back rooms, arms outstretched to hug them, it feels like a seal on their lives. “Are you and Mommy still fighting?” she asks Mulder.

Mulder shoots Scully a look, and answers, “No, I don’t think so, kiddo.”

“Good.” She hugs him tightly. “I missed you. You guys shouldn’t fight.”

///

_The hostages around them are whimpering. Scully has him pulled halfway into her lap, one hand pressed firmly over his wound and the other cupping his face gently. “You're going to be okay,” she whispers. Something wet and salty hits his face. “I'm going to get you out of here.”_

_He wants to tell her to be careful, not to antagonize their captor. “Scu-” he starts. Blood fills his mouth, and he coughs. He tries to tell her that she has to get home to Emily, that that's the most important thing.“Em-”_

_Scully nods, her fingers cool against his hot skin. She pushes the hair away from his brow. “Yes, Emily,” she says, whispering so that the man watching them won't hear their daughter's name. “You can't let go, okay? She misses you too much. I would…” Her voice trembles, and she caresses his cheek as if to stay grounded. “So you've got to hold on so we can see Emily again. Do you understand me?”_

_Their captor has begun pacing with irritation. “Why haven't they called?” he says, addressing Scully. “They're supposed to call.”_

_“They’re not gonna call.” Scully tips her face up to look him in the eye. “I have to get my partner out of here.”_

_“I'm blowing this whole freaking place right off the map if they come in here.”_

_“Look, they don't know that. Don't you get it?” Her voice is wobbly, like she is just barely holding it together. “They can't see you! They don’t know what your plan is. Just walk to the door and show them.”_

_“You wanna get me killed!” the man shouts._

_No. Mulder searches for her wrist, to grab it and tell her to back off before she ends up like him. Every movement hurts._

_“Oh, God,” Scully whispers, looking down at him. “I just want everybody to live,” she says more audibly. Another tear falls and hits his face. “Just… just show them.” Her fingers tighten over the wound, sending bursts of pain through his chest. “You have control over everything that happens here,” she says. “You do. And it doesn’t have to end this way.”_

_The door opens. “Yeah, it does,” the man says sadly, reaching for the trigger._

_“No!” Scully screams. Mulder finds her wrist and manages to wrap his blood-streaked hand around it weakly. She looks down at him again, says, “Mulder, I love you.” He thinks it's supposed to be an intimate whisper, but it comes out a forced, panicked scream. Like she wants it to be her last words no matter what. He can feel the heat of the explosion all around them._

He wakes up to a hoarse, “No” and the feeling of Scully's cool fingers curling around his wrist. “Scully?” he whispers, relieved that she's close.

“Mulder,” she says desperately. She pulls him closer, almost the way she'd held him in the dream, arms wrapping tightly around him.

He shifts, their noses nearly touching. “Did you have the dream, too?” he whispers, fingers tangled in her hair.

She buries her face in his neck, shuddering. “We were in the bank again. Except this time you got shot, and we died when the bomb went off.” She presses her face to his throat. “I couldn't save you,” she whispers.

He buries his nose into her hair. “I was there.”

She holds him tighter. “Mulder… I think what that woman, Pam, what she told you was right. I think we lived that day over and over again, and I think we died. We really died.”

He shudders a little, too. It seems meaningless for Scully to have survived a bullet only to die in a bank robbery just a few weeks later. “We didn't die.” He breathes his words into her hairline. “We didn't die, Scully. We're still here. We're not going to die.”

Her breathing slows as if she is calming, and she kisses the hollow below his chin. He presses his mouth to her scalp in reply. They lie like that in silence for a minute, their heartbeats thundering against each other. _Alive, alive, alive._

“I’m sorry,” he says into her hair. “Scully, I should’ve talked to you.”

“You’re right,” she whispers. “You should have. But I know what you were trying to do.”

“I shouldn’t have… kissed you then, either. I just thought I’d never see you again.”

Scully sniffs, holding him tighter. “You don’t leave again, okay?” she says thickly.

“I won’t. I promise.”

They breathe in a soft, steady rhythm. “Scully,” he says finally to the darkness of her bedroom. “In the bank, you said something… I was…”

“Mulder?”

“Yes?”

“I love you,” she says against his jaw.

He smiles. “Oh, brother,” he whispers, nuzzling her.

“ _Mulder_.”

“I love you, too.”

///

She finds him in the kitchen the next morning, coffee maker burbling as he scrapes spilled coffee grounds off of the counter. “Scully, hey,” he says. “Sorry for the mess. Did you sleep okay, any more nightma-”

She kisses him without any warning.

“Scully,” he says, a dazed grin spreading over his face.

She loves the way he says her name. “Come on, Mulder,” she teases, poking him. “You must’ve seen this coming.”

“Nope.” He pulls her closer, socks sliding on the tiled floor. “You had me big time,” he teases right back, hand cupping her cheek as he leans down to kiss her again.

///

Mulder writes her birthday on the calendar when she isn’t looking. Emily figures it out (probably by Mulder’s clumsy rendition of a cake on the 23 square) and wakes her up at an ungodly hour to sing to her. (So her daughter didn't inherit her tone deafness.) She ends up keeping Emily home from preschool, and they fall back asleep in her bed.

Her mother shows up around ten, bearing cupcakes and an old Clue game. “This used to be Dana’s favorite,” she tells Emily. Of course, Emily is interested in learning how to play, so the two of them sit on the floor by the coffee table and work their way through several rounds. Emily insists that if she wins a game, they have to break out the cupcakes, so after the third round, she runs into the kitchen and carries the box in, neglecting napkins. They eat with their fingers, and Emily’s fingertips are stained a light shade of blue.

Mulder arrives around six that night, when they’ve already moved on to checkers. “Happy birthday,” he says, kissing Scully’s head.

“Bring me a keychain?” she asks, brushing her fingers across his cheek. Her fingers leave pink streaks on his cheeks like war paint.

“Hi, Mulder!” Emily says. “It’s Mommy’s birthday! Want to play Clue?”

“I made her take a break, but this is all we’re going to be playing for the next few months,” she warns, tugging him down to sit beside her.

They play for a few more hours before Emily conks out on the rug, sugar rush having long worn off. “I can carry her,” Mulder offers as Scully scoops her rag doll-limp body into her arms.

“No, let me carry her while I can,” she replies. “She’s getting too big for this.” Mulder looks like he wants to say something about not straining her injury, but he nods and kisses Emily's head before they go.

Scully deposits Emily in bed, and strokes her cheek after tucking the quilt around her. She kisses her daughter’s forehead before standing and stepping away from the bed.

“Love you,” Emily mutters sleepily.

Scully isn’t sure if this is a leftover reflex from the days before she came here, or an actual sentiment, but the gesture brings a lump to her throat and has her blinking back tears. “I love you, too,” she says.

“Hey,” Mulder says when she reenters the room. “You look like you’re about to cry. Are you okay?”

She kisses him fiercely, fingers curling in his hair. “I’m fine,” she says, smiling as she wipes her eyes. “I’m good.” This is all she’s ever wanted.

///

“Emily, we have something to tell you,” Scully says officially, folding her hands in her lap. Mulder slumps beside her, looking nervous like a little kid at the principal’s office, and she resists the urge to remind him that they’re talking to a four-year-old.

Emily bites a Chip’s Ahoy in half, looking between them suspiciously. “Okay.”

“So, um.” She lifts one hand from her lap to reach over and grab Mulder’s. He looks at her nervously, but Emily doesn't seem phased. “We've been… spending a lot of time together.”

“Who, you and Mulder?”

“Yes.”

Emily shrugs. “So what? You always spend a lot of time together.”

Mulder snorts. Scully shifts a little in her seat. “Yes, but…” Is _you've probably noticed we've been sleeping in the same bed now_ inappropriate? Would she even realize that it's inappropriate if it is? “We've been, um…”

“Dating,” Mulder supplies.

The word sounds almost foreign. Like it doesn't fit them. What would their dates be, hunting Bigfoot and watching Disney movies with a four-year-old? “Exactly,” she adds from a lack of any other word to describe what they are.

Emily shrugs again. “Cool.”

“Cool?” they echo in unison.

“Yeah.” She snickers. “Langly will be happy.”

Scully blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, he and Byers were placing bits over whether you guys would get together.

Mulder has a look that seems to be a combination of happiness and faint embarrassment on his face. “Do you mean placing _bets_?”

“Yeah, that. Are you gonna get married?”

Mulder coughs. Scully smirks a little, nudging his thumb with hers. “Let's, uh, let's leave that for another time, okay, sweetie?” she says. “For now, I was thinking in terms of… Mulder being around more often.”

Emily raises an eyebrow. (Scully has to admit, she sees the resemblance Mulder is always going on about.) “More often than he already is?” she asks smugly.

Scully shrugs helplessly. “Spending the night more often than he already does.”

Emily tips her head inquisitively. “Not sleeping on the couch.”

Scully blows air out of her mouth with frustration. “No, not on the couch.”

Emily smiles deviously. “Okay.” She clambers off of her chair and runs to the couch, hugging Mulder around the waist with two cookies still in her hands, sending an avalanche of crumbs down the side of his suit. “I'm glad you're dating Mommy,” she says. Scully smiles.

“Thanks, kiddo,” Mulder says, blinking hard as he tousles her hair. “Me too,” he adds in a conspiratorial stage whisper.

Emily giggles and moves on to hug Scully, giving her the same crumb treatment. “Can I watch TV now?”

She nudges her daughter's baby-shampoo-scented head with her nose. “Sure, sweetie. Just half an hour, then it'll be time for dinner, okay?”

As she beelines for the TV, Mulder breathes out a sigh of relief, saying, “Well, that was nerve racking” under his breath.

She squeezes his hand. “Don't worry, this isn't nearly as bad as it will be when we have to tell Skinner.”

“Scully!”

She laughs. “I'm kidding.” She kisses his hand as the opening sounds of one of Emily's shows plays in the background.

///

“Where’ve you been all day, Mulder?” Emily asks. The three of them are at the kitchen table - her coloring, her mother working on a report, and Mulder typing frantically on his computer.

“I was talking to this guy named Arthur Dales,” he says. “About baseball.”

Her mother snorts. “ _Baseball_.”

Mulder grins mischievously. “You've never hit a baseball, have you, Scully?”

She's smiling where Mulder can't see her, head ducked down and hair hiding her face. “No, I guess I've found more necessary things to do with my time than slap a piece of horsehide with a stick.”

“Hmm,” Mulder says dramatically. “What about you, Em?”

“Uh-uh!” Emily shakes her head excitedly, grin nearly bursting off of her face

“Hmm. That's unfortunate, Scully. Every kid should know how to hit a baseball.”

“You’re right,” her mother says. “So, what do you have in mind, Mulder?”

“I was thinking maybe we could go down to the park, practice. Teach you two about America’s favorite past time.”

“Hmm,” she says, imitating Mulder and smiling at Emily. “What do you think about that, Em?”

Emily’s impatient, wriggling eagerly in her seat. “I like it!”

“The child has spoken, Mulder,” her mother informs him, making Emily giggle. “So, I guess we have to.”

He nudges her. “You want to.”

She nudges him back. “Keep telling yourself that, Mulder.”

So they head to the park. Emily holds her mother’s hand and swings it back and forth. “How _do_ you hit a baseball, Mulder?” she asks.

He holds her mother’s hand on the other side and grins goofily at them. “It’s easy, Em. Hips before hands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this fic is almost a year in the making. it’s not the first idea i ever had but it’s the first idea i ever wrote down. i started out just imagining what iwtb would be like from emily’s perspective and ended up with 26 pages that basically poured out of me without much thought. the original fic isn’t really fit for human consumption, but a lot of the concepts (and some direct scenes) made it into ufot. also i borrowed the title.  
> i wrote another emily fic (the long and winding road, which is au from this fic cause i said so), but i couldn’t let this story idea go. i wanted to explore a lot of things that i didn’t explore with that fic, such as emily’s adjustments and relationships with scully and mulder and how msr developed in this au. the ideas poked at me for a long time until i finally decided to write the pieces of the au that were clearest in my mind. this was originally supposed to be a little two-shot, and it turned into a really frickin long thing. NOT INTENTIONAL.
> 
> that being said, this has been a seriously fun experience (even when i was plagued with writer’s block). emily will always be one of my favorite underrated characters (she had like five lines ever) and it was seriously fun to develop her character, as well as explore seasons 5 and 6 through the lens of “what if she’d live”. i am seriously proud of this evolved little monster i’ve created. 
> 
> (and i’m kind of hoping to do some stories from this au set in s7 in the future so be on the look out for those)


End file.
